


Husk

by maximum_overboner



Series: The Exchange [3]
Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: Angst, Darkfic, Disturbing Sexual Content, Gen, Horror, One Sided Attraction, Seriously this is some dark shit, Sexual Themes, So much angst, an alternative chapter to the main fic, extremely uncomfortable themes, fucked up things happen, its also optional, not a smutfic, papyrus has a bad time, too one sided, very one sided
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-06
Updated: 2016-05-10
Packaged: 2018-05-24 23:43:57
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 11
Words: 31,541
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6171454
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/maximum_overboner/pseuds/maximum_overboner
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Something is very, very wrong with Papyrus.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Swap

**Author's Note:**

> HAHA HOO BOY HERE WE GO FOLKS. I'm Feeling Fine Kid broke 2,000 kudos, so I'm releasing this early! Word of warning for general ickyness and Gaster being disgusting. There will be uncomfortable themes so if you feel this may upset you, feel free to skip it. Thank (or curse) loracarol for the initial idea! ^-^ Consider this as an alternative to chapter 38 of the [main fic](http://archiveofourown.org/works/5170061/chapters/11910140) in the series (which you will need to read for this to make sense)!

  The snow, that would fall in large clumps and dissolve in the air into fine powder, felt entirely still in that moment, as if every individual flake were suspended in gel. The wind did not rustle through the trees, and the chirps of birds did not echo down from the top of the mountain. The ice did not glisten against the light and did not crack with a pleasant, satisfying crunch. Everything stopped, suspended in that split second, as Papyrus fired.

  Frisk was dead. Of course they were. Splayed organs and pallid skin. Things were going too well, anyway. Nothing ever went well, not in the long term. Not for Papyrus. Not for anyone around him.

  He wished for Sans. In that brief flash, that suspended moment, when it felt like his bones would be wrenched out of his sockets, plucked like sweet, ripe fruit from their holdings. He wished, and hoped, and prayed, and begged, that Sans would come and save him in one fell swoop. More than anything.

  It was not enough.

  Nobody came.

  Papyrus slumped, defeated, shocked, the trauma rendering him completely speechless as he slowly crawled towards Frisk’s broken corpse. He was cut off by the pillar of black in front of him, monolithic from his position on the ground.

  “Stay.”

  Gaster dissipated suddenly, leaving a thick miasma that swirled and drifted on the breeze, obscuring Papyrus’ vision. He ignored the order, lumbered to his feet and continued the slow advance, eyes hollow and vacant, bones clicking quietly with every movement. Gaster reappeared once again, holding the shrapnel with deft precision, with a dagger-like grip. He was empty and bleak against the white fullness of the snow around them, everything silent except for the low moan of the wind as it blew over the snow-drifts.

  “Present your arm.”

  Papyrus continued walking towards Frisk, ignoring Gaster, seeing through him, over him, under him, everything but him. Gaster stood steady.

  “ _Present your arm._ ”

  Papyrus mumbled something, but continued to shamble, his limbs becoming looser, his stare becoming rigid.

  “This will be easier if you comply, present your arm--”

  “ _NO._ ”

  “The child is dead. The child is permanently dead. They are gone. I have their soul. Sans cannot hear you from here. There is no way you can beat me in a fight. Present your arm or I will make you.”

  Papyrus looked him straight in the eye, knowing now what it was like to wish for someone else to die. Papyrus wanted to grab at his neck and tug until he felt a hefty snap, and he didn’t care to dampen the embers of those thoughts, not this time. Papyrus wanted him to die, to _stop being_. “NO!”

  “One last chance to do this with your dignity intact.” Gaster, though dwarfed in size, leaned forward, and Papyrus cowed a little before snapping back to his full height. Gaster was right. It was over. But he would never roll over and die, never, never, he would screech and bite and claw until he couldn’t. “One last chance. Present. Your. Arm.”

  “NO! NEVER!” He hissed, teeth bared in rictus and arms back to give his body leverage as he leaned forward, every bone in his body compelling him to snap open his jaws and bite Gaster’s face until it crunched under his maw, his restraint finally gone as he felt his soul shrivel and writhe in his chest like a fat, stuffed maggot.

  “Fine,” Gaster said dismissively, “be that way.”

  Papyrus landed on his front with a yelp, feeling dozens of groping hands, pawing arms, tighten around his limbs, his torso, clinging onto his bones like sweat, and he thrashed, letting every extremity collide with the phantom structures, dirt and grit and snow grinding into his bones as the fabric of his shirt bunched up under him. They scraped and stung, the pain reminding him that he was alive, that he needed to buck more, that he could never, under any circumstances, in any small way, give up, that if he were going to die then he was going to do so messily, in a way that would be difficult to forget.

  Gaster broke off a sliver of the shrapnel, the small section melding effortlessly in his hands into fine ribbons, that glistened like silk then solidified under his touch. He let his arms stretch and dip down, whilst his trunk remained static.

  “Jaw.”

  Papyrus felt five, perhaps six, unnatural, abominable hands grasp at the gap in his mandible, and begin to pull. He clenched as hard as he could, until the pain was too much, until his body gave in even when he did not want to, but not before his molars cracked from the pressure. He dribbled and spat, but any energy that could be directed towards mortification was being used to keep him alive and thrashing.

  “Oh, thank you. You’ve actually made my job a little easier.”

  With no warning, he felt the metal prise at the inside of his teeth, and he bit down on the fingers in his mouth until they rived and snapped, still wriggling though they were no longer attached, prodding at the back of his mouth and squirming, searching for input.

  “Would you stop that?”

  Papyrus heaved, managing to spew out the fingers, conjuring a tongue to try to wrench out the pieces of metal. He felt woozy, and he wasn’t sure if it was entirely from the pain.

  “Good. Vertebrae, neck.” Gaster ducked down this time, feet away, body bending to resemble a squat. “I am giving you a choice. Present it yourself or I will make you.”

  Papyrus battered his skull against the icy ground in frustration, aware he was laughing in violent, tremorous horror, feeling his grip on reality, his situation, himself, lessen with every passing second. Still, he summoned a loud, cacophonous “NO!”, every movement of his mandible feeling like hot pins being dragged across his teeth.

  “This is only painful because you are choosing to make it so. It will be very simple if you just let me do this. You would not feel a thing if I didn’t have to move your bones one by one. This is your fault, you know.”

  Papyrus paused, feeling every breath shake his ribs. “... NO. I’M GOING TO GO OUT THE SAME WAY I CAME IN!” He thought to the awful joke Sans had cracked on his birthday, the last vestiges of his soul wedging happy memories into the back of his mind in an effort to stay strong. “SCREAMING AND COVERED IN GORE! IF YOU’RE GOING TO GO TO THE EFFORT OF TAKING MY BODY THEN I’M GOING TO GO TO THE EFFORT OF MAKING IT AS DIFFICULT AS POSSIBLE!”

  Gaster rolled his eyes, exacerbated, the way one would if a child were throwing a tantrum, a shrieking fit at your heels. Another piece of the metal, that was slick, was wedged in the back of his neck, a place he knew to be inconspicuous. Papyrus felt woozy, and wished he could vomit, that he could make Gaster’s day that little bit worse. Instead he was left with a nausea that he couldn’t shift, and a pain that worked its way further and further down his body, exacerbated by his ceaseless movements. His judders slowed, but did not stop, and they wouldn’t whilst he still had the strength.

  “Scapula.” Gaster paused as his victory was assured, thinking out loud. “Both would be best, I think.” He let his true hands retract, split off two pieces of metal, then passed them to his false, conjured ones, dozens upon dozens of them writhing and clamoring to grab at it. Two did so, then began to pass them to the hands closest to Papyrus’ shoulder blades, each wave undulating like a great and terrible insect. His shirt was pulled down from his shoulders, bunching up at the tops of his arms as they were jammed in, more hands crammed into his mouth and from below, into the underside of his jaw, to silence his screaming. Half of the shrapnel was left, give or take.

  Gaster drifted down, slowly, and began to rub soothing circles in Papyrus’ scalp. He dipped his to give him a chaste kiss on the forehead, brief and sincere, in the way one would a beloved family pet. Papyrus tried to cast his fist defensively in an upwards arc, growing numbness coating white-hot rage. It did nothing.

  “Spine.”

  The hands, the numerous, phantom hands, gently fixed the upper part of his shirt, smoothing out the creases, before lifting the bottom portion to give access to his back, pinning down the column of his spine and wedging the metal in the gaps, watching as they became lost in the black spaces, no longer noticeable. Papyrus felt a tug on his thoughts, as words would trickle out of his mouth and drop. It was becoming so, so difficult to move, to think. He was reduced to weakly wriggling.

  Gaster cleared his throat. “Pubis.”

  Papyrus screamed before Gaster could gouge him further, summoning all of his will to break the hands that bound him, drawing unnatural strength from the danger, his head becoming foggier with every passing second, operating entirely on blind instinct and fear. Gaster yelped in surprise, cowing away from the noise, having become cozy in his victory. Papyrus stumbled to the nearest solid structure, a nearby tree he assumed, his vision dipping in and out in dizzying waves, and readied himself.

  Papyrus bashed his skull against the mass of the tree, shrieking and grunting, having cast away his ability to speak. He did not need it. He concentrated his efforts on dying. This was needed. This was what he deserved. The only way he could stop this, make amends, have it all be over. The pain was overwhelming, and a good sign, so he withdrew and resumed, ramming his skull against the mass.

  “No! Stop, you will damage my body!”

  Papyrus felt a long, deep crack on the right side of his skull, that perforated every layer, moving from his brow to the back of his neck. Soon, soon!

  “You will stop immediately!”

  To Papyrus’ horror he did, standing rigid with no momentum, unable to move though he desperately wanted to, beyond all belief. Gaster let out a long, low sigh of relief. He glided over, dismissing the hands that were strewn about around them, watching as they dissipated into thin, black smoke, the digits crackling as they snapped from the inside. He brought his real hands up to examine the crack, gently, so gently, ghosting his fingertips over to gauge its severity. It was bad, but not fatal. He healed it immediately, magic, so much magic, trickling out of his hands and onto the injury, Papyrus doing his best to dodge the contact. It connected and felt warm, pleasant, nice, things Papyrus did not deserve. With a dismissive motion of his hands, Gaster did away with the spell, looking at the now thin fracture. “Oh, Pappy--”

  “YOU DO NOT GET TO CALL ME THAT!,” he gargled, voice weak, “YOU CAN NEVER CALL ME THAT!”

  Gaster did not react. He did not need to, now. It was almost over. “Right arm, palm facing upwards.”

  Papyrus presented his arm, his body moving even if he did not want it to.

  “Splay your fingers. Keep your arm as outstretched as you can, it is the only way I can access your elbow.”

  Papyrus’ arm shuddered, the bulk of it not moving.

  “Stop resisting, you will break it.”

  With all of his willpower Papyrus shot him a look that said he did not care, and his arm shook harder still, sweat beading across his back from the effort of resisting. Gaster broke off a little piece of the shrapnel himself, no longer needing to rely on elaborate magical gestures. Now his will was enough. There was enough of him in Papyrus. With a little twist, he slipped it in the gap, and there was no pain. Papyrus wished that there was, that he still could thrash.

  “Lets try again. Pubis.”

  With a tug of the jeans, it was done. That one hurt. More than he had ever known. It was different from a physical pain, however. He could only say that it was different. Colder.

  “Button up your jeans.”

  Papyrus did that one by himself, not needing to be forced.

  “You are allowed to cry.”

  “I REFUSE.”

  There were only his knees left, which was done quickly now that Papyrus had no sway. Gaster began dissipating, still clinging onto the human soul but feeling his body be peeled like thin plastic, in layers that came away with a great sense of satisfaction.

  “What do you have to say for yourself? Have you finally given in?”

  With the last threads of his soul, Papyrus choked out one last word before he was not himself.

  “NO.”

 

* * *

 

 

  Gaster came to out in the forest, gasping, the snow pressing firmly into his nasal bone as he slowly righted himself. He brought his long fingers up to pick at the gaps in his face and marveled at their paleness, at their smooth, grasping frames. He flexed them, the action truly driving home what he had managed to accomplish. He brought his tentative hands to his face in exploration, taking in all the tactile sensations, the rattling of his bones, the feel of cloth and fabric against him, the sticky gore, the freezing chunks of snow under his knees. Wonderful. All wonderful. He looked to the crack in his ulna. It was his, now. All his. He deserved this.

  He needed to think of a story if he were going to get away with this. He needed to call on every mannerism Papyrus had ever exhibited, every little twitch, every little crack of his voice, every little spasm. It would not be difficult. He had experience after all.

  Gaster stood up, looking himself up and down. Why, he was quite handsome, as far as skeletons went. He really had lucked out.

 

* * *

 

  Sans was broken out of his sleep by the sounds of shrieking, like the cracking of a whip near his ear. 'Papyrus' was scrambling towards his post, clumsy movements as he slipped and slid on the ice in desperation.

  “SANS! OH GOD, A H-HUMAN, THEY CAME AND ATTACKED ME! A-AND I TRIED TO DEFEND MYSELF, LIKE YOU SAID, BUT I WAS TOO STRONG AND THEY--I--IT JUST--”

  Sans blinked dozily before processing the statement. Once it struck, he leapt forward over the desk, panic hurrying his movements. “papyrus, i... w-what the fuck happened, are you-- oh god, what--are you alright? your skull, oh my god--”

  Gaster did his best impression, tears and snot and shaking, none of it genuine. This was fun. It was like being an actor. Sans was shaking too, but it was more contained, an act of forced stoicism. “alright, alright, don’t worry, okay? it’s all gonna be fine, it’s all gonna be fine--”

  Gaster felt Papyrus stir in the void, felt him mumble, then speak, little rumbles only he could hear. It was one word. “DON’T.”

  Gaster let himself zone out slightly, allowing his new, shiny body to mimic the effects of shell-shock, but also allowing himself to review his situation. His surroundings. Sans.

  Sans was... Kind of cute, in an odd way. Charming in his lack of charm, funny, smarter than he liked to let on. Always trying to make Papyrus, the real one, not the husk being piloted with jolts and twitches, laugh. Always meaning well. Earnest, when he wanted to be. White bones and youthful eyes, that hid something imperceptible, something he always made the effort to cover up with cheap gags and wordplay. With that in mind, he was actually quite attractive.

  Gaster looked at him in his new body and smiled, soft and sweet, which Sans mistook for reassurance. He heard Papyrus shriek and gag and plead in the void, saying that Gaster could do what he wanted with his body but to please, please leave Sans alone. Papyrus begged for him to not to act on Gaster’s own warped feelings, not to have his pure, genuine, familial love _sullied_ , to have Sans think so badly of Papyrus, to retroactively _ruin_ every moment they had ever had. Gaster ignored him, as he had that luxury.

  Gaster, finally getting used to the new pitch of his voice, faked a whimper of fear. “C-CAN I GET A HUG?”

  Sans opened his arms immediately, without question, with blind, total trust. Gaster clamped his own arms around him, still a little unused to normal limbs and their trajectories. Sans clamped back in return, mumbling little reassurances, shocked himself. Gaster let his face fall into a neutral position, the effort of keeping it wrenched now pointless as Sans couldn’t see it, but continued to make the little groans and whines of upset Papyrus would spew pathetically. Sans smelled a little like ketchup, fresh sweat, and soap that hadn’t been washed off fully. He breathed it in. Sans was warm. Gaster was warm, too. It was nice to be so alive. He withdrew to avoid arousing suspicion, feeling the touch linger on his ribs.

  “A-ASGORE SAID HE WANTED A HUMAN SOUL, AND AFTER IT WAS ALL OVER I P-PANICKED, SO...” Gaster lifted his ruined shirt, to let Sans see his rib-cage. There was a soul, upright, human and red, sitting in his chest, in him now.

  Sans blinked, looked ‘Papyrus’ in the eye, then blinked again, dumbstruck. He mourned the death of his brother’s innocence, but was glad he had taught him to defend himself. Tentative excitement bubbled in his chest, at the prospect of finally seeing the surface, but he quelled it under the circumstances. “holy shit. holy shit. bro, i have no idea what to say, you just... dude, you kinda saved the whole underground.”

  Gaster feigned innocence. He would need to get used to that, and kept his voice high, and lilting. “REALLY?”

  “they attacked you and you did your best. that’s all that matters. you’re alive.” Sans looked at his neck. “fuck, they got your scarf?

  Gaster nodded. The real Papyrus was reduced to quiet noises of resignation, begging. He didn’t know where he was. He couldn’t see. His voice would ring out endlessly, but he wasn’t even sure if Gaster could hear. He couldn’t feel anything, not at that moment, as the exchange was slowly coming to its completion.

  “ARE WE... ARE WE GOING TO SEE THE SURFACE?”

  Sans squashed his eyes sympathetically, unable to look away from the gore that coated his brother’s body. “we are. you did it, man. even if it hurts now, you did it. t-they’re gonna need to let you into the guard now. hell, they’ll be throwing medals at you left right and center. hold on to that, alright? don’t feel guilty for something a human forced you to do.”

  Papyrus saw the thoughts that ran through Gaster’s mind, even though he did not want to. He was disgusted. Gaster had at least had the decency to imagine his own, old body with Sans, because he was not sure if he could even speak under the weight of his own revulsion if that were not the case. He knew for a fact that his relief would be temporary.

  It was a good life Gaster was going to lead.

* * *

 

  Papyrus had no idea where he was. He would walk, and walk, and walk, but he could not see himself. He felt powerful, but was not, himself, powerful, simply left with the uncomfortable awe one feels when they stare at a deep, dark trench. He could not see his body. He could not see anything. He simply picked a point, then walked.

  He was certain, however, he could feel little sensations. Inklings. Spats of cold, then warmth. The taste of milk. The sound of Sans’ voice. He could, however make out Gaster’s thoughts with perfect clarity. He would have preferred death.


	2. Night

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've bumped the rating up, and for good reason. I'm not entirely sure what to tag this as, but if you are triggered by disturbing sexual content then please skip this story!

  Gaster was bestowed with every single title he could be given, every piece of ceremonial attire that could be thrust upon him, every single gift that could be indulged with, every single bauble and jewel that he could ever, ever want. In the hours before the barrier was finally broken, as the populace prepared themselves for a grand exodus, he was immortalized forever in Monster history as The Great Papyrus, The Hero That Broke The Barrier, a legacy that would be grafted onto him. He was promoted to First Lieutenant of the Guard, as Gaster had requested it as a means to keep his cover up, because that is what Papyrus would have wanted, the title, the fame. It was entirely superfluous, a role that carried no real weight apart from the title. Papyrus would have loved it anyway. Undyne pulled him to one side, gave him a big, heartfelt speech, (--I never thought you had it in ya, but you’ve saved us all--”) that ended in her shedding a little tear, and Gaster mimicking one in turn, as it was expected, because he saw that people did that when they were happy. At least, he had assumed Undyne was happy. Something about the way her eyes curled when she spoke about Papyrus’ victory suggested otherwise, but Gaster didn’t care about her beyond maintaining appearances. The real Papyrus probably wouldn’t have picked up on it anyway, so it didn’t matter.

  The barrier was broken, and they felt the fresh air on their bones.

  “ARE YOU CRYING?”

  “what? no. pfft. i don’t cry.”

  “BUT I’M LOOKING AT YOU. YOU’RE CRYING.”

  “nah.”

  “YOU ARE!”

  “you’re hallucinatin’.”

  Gaster felt warmth blister through him, lust and something altogether grander. He would almost say it was love, if he had the capacity. But it wasn’t. And he knew it couldn't be.

 

* * *

 

  There was a long overdue truce with the Humans. They knew what must have happened to break the barrier. They all did, it was passed down in stories and tales, the banishment of the evil Monsters to the Underground to die. There was no war. But there was no peace, either. The plan was for the Guard to disband as a gesture, their purpose fulfilled, but given the tension that idea was suspended, and they remained active to prove that Monsters still had their pride. Sans and Gaster immediately began to search for accommodation, backed with Sans’ savings from his days as a scientist and Gaster’s new fame. It turned out gold was quite the commodity on the surface. They could live in comfort for the rest of their lives, however long that happened to be. Sans didn’t know what the amount was, could not even ballpark it. Gaster did. They had thousands of years together. It was everything, everything the real Papyrus could have wanted, popularity, fame, a horde of admirers and a shower of kisses. Gaster was enjoying it. Sans looked happy, too.

 

* * *

 

 

  Papyrus was walking in the void, and walking, and walking, and walking, and stumbling, and walking, and falling, until he fell, fell and fell and fell for what was most likely hours, into a large clearing, a huge field that burned phosphorus white into his eye sockets with the light that hit it. It was the same field he had first spoke to Gaster in, the sky blistering as the place he had fell from, wherever it was, trickled in like syrup, black and writhing and impossible. He stood up, dusted himself off, and watched as his bones dripped and melted and warped as he stared at them. He was aware something was happening, a feeling that was not his own pushing into him. He focused on it out of curiosity. It was the feeling of a mattress on his back, a soft, plump blanket on his front. Gaster was taking a nap. Gaster had forced him into the void and was taking a _nap_. Papyrus was too dully appalled to be angry at this point, though he was still giving it his best shot, letting raging shouts tear from his throat. He had a body, at least, even if it would break down like a cancer and reconstitute under him. All he had with him was his scarf, the one thing his mind had desperately clung to, his anchor, his sanity. With renewed determination, he tried to warp the landscape, as he once did, to prove he could, to prove he could save Sans in a grand heroic gesture.

  The landscape, with its wheat fields, with its greenery that swept under and in front of him, with the lovely hills and the settlement in the distance, that was static and uncomfortably perfect, shifted slightly. Oh so slightly indeed. The wind picked up. That was enough to give him hope. Gaster used to appear to him to challenge him. Papyrus was going to do this same. He sat down and focused.

  Time was of the essence.

 

* * *

 

 

  “I’M GOING OUT!”

  “have fun. don’t do anything i wouldn’t do.”

  Their apartment was cosy, but purposefully so, a far cry from the grand, opulent spaces they could actually afford. It was plain, and simple, and almost boxlike, but Sans had wanted to live here and so Gaster did not object. They had been on the surface for two weeks, and Sans had enjoyed the luxury of lazing about the house whilst Gaster was forced to attend meetings and interviews and talks with Human authorities. Monsters were to be allowed to live as any other citizen, officially. But everyone knew that would take time, these figures from fairy-tales rising up from the mountain to exist amongst them again. The Humans knew that somebody must have killed, have been killed, to break the barrier. The Monsters had taken to keeping the culprit secret, vague, and ever-changing. Gaster could declare he was that person and no Human would believe him. But his people knew.

  This was the first day he truly had to himself.

  “I WOULD LIKE A GOODBYE HUG.”

  Sans laughed, gently mocking. “you’re such a sap, you’re worse than when you were a babybones! what’s gotten into you?”

  Gaster laughed back, false, very, very false, and wanted to punish Sans for denying him that little bit. He made his voice go quiet, pensive. “I KEEP THINKING ABOUT WHAT I DID TO THE HUMAN, AND IT UPSETS ME. I’M SORRY FOR BEING LIKE THIS, BUT IF YOU WANT ME TO JUST GO--”

  Sans fell for it hook, line and sinker. “ah fuck, i didn’t mean it like that.” He groaned, put down the book he was reading, and stood up, stretching upwards to relieve the pressure on his back, showing off his spine, the upper corners of his pelvis. That tease.

  “alright, alright, bring it in. don’t suplex me, though, i know you’ve been livin’ it up with undyne.”

  Gaster groaned internally. “I SURE HAVE,” he chirped. He dipped down to meet the embrace, resisting the urge to run his tongue up Sans’ perfect, bony neck. He would need to work up to all of that. He did still look like Papyrus, after all, and he would rather rack up a few notches on his bedpost before risking that approach because there was a slim chance Sans might kill him. Very slim indeed, but still. Gaster slowly ran a hand up his back, over his hoodie, tender.

  “you tryin’ to burp me or something?”

  “I AM TRYING TO HAVE A SWEET BROTHERLY MOMENT, THANK YOU VERY MUCH!”

  Sans laughed, pulling back. “never thought you were the type to go bar crawling.”

  Gaster faked a shrug, setting up the lie with a perfect imitation of Papyrus’ mannerisms. “UNDYNE SAID IT WOULD BE FUN! BUT I WILL BE RESPONSIBLE, BECAUSE I AM COOL.”

  “hey, you do you, i know you’re not gonna, uh... do what i did. but hey, you miss all of the shots you don’t take, right? which is probably shitty advice coming from me because of the whole alcoholism thing, but whatever, just don’t do anything stupid. if you’re bringin’ anyone back, for the love of god, give my door a couple of knocks on the way by so i can crank the radio up, you’d think this place would have thicker walls--”

  Gaster correctly deduced that this would be the part of the conversation in which Papyrus would become embarrassed, and express that fact shrilly. “SANS!”

  “we either have this conversation now, or we have it later on, and have it be way, way more awkward. i’m just bein’ pragmatic. really don’t want to hear any of that.”

  “YOU WILL DO THE SAME, I HOPE?”

  “obviously.”

  Gaster felt his heart sink, just a tiny bit, feeling the vine of the shrapnel twist in his hollowed-out bones. Sans looked odd.

  “ARE YOU ALRIGHT?”

  “hmm? yeah. i was... just thinkin’ about that woman that used to hang out in the ruins. the door never opened, even when we all left, so she’s still there. i want to visit her sometime, but--”

  Sans thought of the Human that had attacked his brother. That was buried.

  “i don’t think it’d be right for me to go. it’s kinda bummed me out.”

  Gaster popped his hand on Sans’ shoulder in a gesture of comfort that lingered slightly too long, before throwing on a coat and making his way towards the door. “DON’T WORRY, SANS. I’M SURE SHE’LL UNDERSTAND! SHE’LL COME OUT SOON!” Gaster looked to the time on the wall clock, behind the seat. “I’M OFF TO GO MEET UNDYNE, I’LL SEE YOU LATER!”

  “see ya. tell her i said hi.”

  “WILL DO!”

  Gaster set off, alone, into the night, to see what he could find.

  Sans resumed reading, sinking back into the sofa. He couldn’t shake off a creeping feeling, that would twist and coil around him, with roots that were obscured. He was probably still adjusting to the surface. Yeah. That was it. Not that there was something a little _off_ with Papyrus, because that would be absurd.

 

* * *

 

  Gaster found a bar near his home, sauntered in with all the quiet authority he could summon, well-earned, walked to the counter and ordered a drink. He was not sure which one. All he knew was that it was very, very strong, and it made him feel warm and dizzy, pleasantly so, the rug underneath him shifting in slow, lazy circles. After downing it, he let his gaze wander to the patrons, to the door, to the bar again. It was filled with Humans. Humans that were staring. Best to avoid a conflict.

  “DRINKS ARE ON ME TONIGHT. GET AS MANY AS YOU WANT.”

  The atmosphere calmed down immediately, and the majority that did not want a scene let loose a collective sigh of relief. Gaster let his face fall into perfect neutrality, feeling his clothes against his bones, feeling the cool air around him, feeling burning in his throat. He was alive. He was real. But he wanted more. He wanted what he was owed. There were men and women that were still gawking, gaze fixed on the skeleton, this shambling corpse that had walked in. Gaster enjoyed the attention. He certainly wasn't going to be ignored like this. He could try his luck with them, but they would probably not be receptive, and he did not want to risk violence, ‘keying his new car’, so to speak. Best to start simply.

  There was a Monster woman, a salamander, outside smoking, wearing a dress that was too tight, all smeared lipstick and chipped nails and a look in her eyes that said she had been stood up on a date two hours ago. Gaster had a lot of clout now that he was ‘The Great Papyrus’, wearing a husk and scuttling from place to place looking for cheap thrills, doing what he wanted and acting on every whim. He had broken the barrier after all. All he had to do was drop the name and she would be more than willing to sleep with him. She was. He didn’t even have to buy her a drink. Gaster fucked her behind a dumpster in the dimly lit alleyway outside, all neon and grit and filth, the murmur of conversation from the open window hiding the noise, and she reeked of ash, like death, and it somehow made him feel more alive. Oh, now that was fun. No wonder that wonderful, lanky idiot would think about it so often, even if it seemed to involve a great deal more wooing and candles, sickly-sweet sentiment that would ooze like boiled sugar and stick in his mind. Oh well!

  Fat, globulus tears tumbled like severed tumors from Papyrus as he sat in that field, that dropped and thudded and splat and resonated on themselves until they formed a cacophony, as a feeling worked its way through him that was disgustingly, hatefully _nice_. He wasn’t stupid. He knew what was finally happening. He knew Gaster was slowly escalating. He knew Gaster was imagining Sans. Hell. This was hell. It must have been, every aspect of it was perfectly designed to upset him, everything, all of it, tailored to punish him for his mistakes. But he could not give up. He would think of something, and would endure, and would always endure, because Sans needed him. Even if he wanted to give up. Even if he wanted to die. But it was he who deserved to be punished, not Sans, and so he would continue.

  Gaster came for the first time in his life, laughing and laughing and laughing, the sensation blistering in its exquisite newness. He could probably go again. Ah, the joys of youth!

 

* * *

 

  Channeling his raw emotion, his dogged, unshakable determination, Papyrus blinked into existence for only a moment, a half-second, surprising himself. More surprised, however, was Gaster, who was stumbling home with his pants undone and drooling, regurgitated alcohol running down his shirt. The noise of shock he made was almost worth the whole ordeal, Papyrus told himself, as he was whipped back to that field that would loop on itself no matter how far he walked. It was possible, then. He needed to hold onto that. He could not give up. He could do it. He would find a way to end this, for Sans. Time had no meaning for him, he had no landmarks, nothing. All he could do was try. He would.

 

* * *

 

  Gaster stumbled home at seven AM, stomach tossing from the sighting, sweating and sated, one night of his life spent well. Sans was sat on the couch, book sat on his lap, his lids very, very heavy.

  “oh thank god. i tried callin’ you, i was getting worried.”

  “DON’T,” Gaster slurred, completely unused to the effects of alcohol. “I’M AN ADULT, I’M FINE.”

  Sans had the audacity to look a little hurt, sat in his sweatpants, fighting to stay awake.

  “it’s just... this ain’t like you. what did undyne say, she take you on a bender? you look wrecked.”

  Gaster wiped his open mouth, breath reeking. “SHE WENT HOME EARLY.”

  Sans was looking him up and down, down then up, to his bunched up shirt, to his wonky lids, taking in the way ‘Papyrus’ slurred his words, how he stood unevenly. “something is wrong with you.”

  “NO THERE ISN’T. MAYBE I JUST WANTED TO DO YOUNG-PEOPLE THINGS.”

  “you used to shout at me when i’d come home like this. what changed.”

  “I DID. STOP FUSSING.”

  “i just don’t want you to do something real stupid, all right? that such a crime?”

  Gaster just wanted to go to sleep, and wanted to go to sleep _immediately_ , which meant it was going to happen right now whether Sans wanted that or not. Sans narrowed his eyes to focus on something, on Gaster, and winced.

  “WHAT’S WRONG?”

  “you’ve, uh... got a little stuff on your pants, beer or somethin’.”

  A sliver of Gaster slipped through ‘Papyrus’ before he could think, his mind foggy, exhaustion playing havoc with his acting. “OH, IT’S PROBABLY EJACULATE.”

  Sans recoiled, eyes almost fused shut with the force of his cringe, with genuine, unhidden repulsion, his whole body jolting in shock. Oh shit. Gaster could probably save this if he just said something Papyrus-y.

  “WHOOPSIE-DOOPSIE! I DID NOT MEAN TO SAY THAT OUT LOUD, MY MISTAKE! PLEASE FORGET YOU EVER HEARD THAT. HOW EMBARRASSING!”

  With that he let out a long, awkward laugh, and marched passed Sans, who was agog, to go to his room, to shut the door and toss himself into his unmade bed with his clothes still on. He heard Sans’ voice boom through the house. Gaster wasn't sure who he was shouting for, his brother, or himself.

  “ **what the fuck was that? _what the fuck_.** ”

 

* * *

 

  Papyrus, the real one, came to in the living room of the apartment Sans was living in with the imposter, shaking and shuddering from the exertion, before he let out a long, relived laugh, having finally cracked it, gotten the knack down, made up of nothing but spite and time and _hate_ and _magic_. Sans was still holding that book, a pulpy science fiction novel he had picked up, stunned, overtired. Not reading. Just staring. Papyrus heard one solid creak of a bed-spring a few rooms over. Gaster had heard.

  “SANS,” he began, voice hoarse from disuse, and desperate, so desperate for his brother to be happy. “I KNOW YOU CAN’T HEAR ME, BUT I LOVE YOU. PLEASE SEE THROUGH HIM. PLEASE DON’T THINK THAT’S ME. PLEASE.”

  There was a silence as Papyrus composed himself, before letting his voice tear through the walls to reach Gaster.

  “ ** _YOU!_** ”

  Gaster mumbled, and pulled the covers over his head. He could feel a hangover setting in.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, uh... Gaster isn't a great person...


	3. Bed

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter Three: Everything Gets Worse Somehow

 

  Papyrus stomped to ‘his’ room with unrestrained, shrill fury, every footstep like a gong in Gaster’s mind, which compelled Papyrus to thud even harder as he marched, forgoing civility entirely to warp through the wall.

  “HOW _DARE YOU_.”

  Gaster burrowed his face into the covers, pulling the pillow over his ears. It did nothing to help the growing pain, the dull ache that was moving from the back of his skull to settle behind his eyes.

  Papyrus was gesturing wildly, like he was cutting the air to slip himself through it, so unrestrained it looked as if his jaw was going to unclick through the force of his shouts and come clean off. His voice was low, bubbling, hoarse with righteous indignation. “YOU KICKED ME OUT OF MY OWN BODY, CHUGGED WHAT I AM ALMOST CERTAIN WAS AN ENTIRE DISTILLERY, HAD SEX WITH A STRANGER IN AN ALLEYWAY-- _AN ALLEYWAY!_ \-- IN MY BODY, KNOWING I COULD FEEL _EVERYTHING_ \--

  “You are welcome,” Gaster mumbled into his pillow, dropping his ‘voice’ now that it was no longer needed. “I’m not sure why you’re upset. It was a lot of fun. And you can’t say it wasn’t.”

  “--AND ARE NOW ATTEMPTING TO SEDUCE MY BROTHER,YOU _ABOMINATION_.”

  Gaster shrugged, rolling over to look at the plaster ceiling that seared itself into his eyes.

  Papyrus was looming over him, close enough that he could feel Gaster’s hot breath puff against him, foreheads butting in conflict, perfect mirrors except for Gaster’s clothing and the thin crack across his skull. “WHY, OUT OF EVERYONE ON THE PLANET, EVERY PERSON ALIVE, DID YOU PICK SANS?”

  “Because he is cute. Surely that’s reason enough,” Gaster casually braced his hand against Papyrus’ skull, pushing him back effortlessly. "You haven’t written an essay every time you’ve lusted after someone, why should I? I have already skipped the middle man, I don’t even need to get to know him; he loves ketchup but cannot stand tomatoes, he hates walking around barefoot because the carpet fibers make him itch, he has a very weak allergy to apples, but likes the tingling feeling in his mouth and so will sometimes eat them anyway, he only masturbates when you are out because he hates even the idea of being caught, and he never liked your spaghetti.”

  Papyrus recoiled at the very personal fact Gaster had just revealed, the one he had never wanted to know, but composed himself. He needed to stay strong, no matter what he saw, no matter what he heard, for Sans’ sake, always for Sans’ sake. “NO. BECAUSE, OH, IN CASE YOU FORGOT, HE THINKS YOU ARE ME. BECAUSE HE’S MY BROTHER. AND YOU ARE IN MY BODY. NOW YOU KNOW FOR A FACT, AND ABSOLUTE, UNQUESTIONABLE FACT THAT HE WOULD NOT BE INTERESTED BECAUSE HE, ONCE AGAIN, IS MY BROTHER. THIS IS NOT SOMETHING I SHOULD HAVE TO EXPLAIN.”

  “He doesn’t need to be interested. He just needs to be compliant.”

  Papyrus froze. The only movement was the slight twitch of his mandible needed to speak, the rest of him stuck in growing, sinking, grasping horror.

  The clock ticked.

  A bird sung outside, high, lilting and beautiful.

  He heard Gaster breathe, in, then out.

  In a different life, he could have seen himself on the surface under different circumstances. What he would have done to have that come to pass.

  “OH NO. OH GOD, YOU’RE NOT ACTUALLY IMPLYING WHAT I THINK YOU ARE, ARE YOU?”

  “And what if I was, hmm? I know what he likes. He would, on a very deep level, the little bit of him he has no control over, enjoy it.”

  “YOU-- I-- THAT’S HIDEOUS, THAT’S HIDEOUS! YOU ARE HIDEOUS, Y-YOU--”

  Papyrus did not like cursing. He would, occasionally, Sans could attest to that, as pain generally dictated your statements before you could. There was the time he had slipped on the stairs and bashed his groin on the bannister. Sans had peeped his head out of his room to offer a sympathetic wince and an ‘ooooh’, drawn out by an exceptionally loud (and impressively creative, Sans would admit) string of expletives, but those always aimed at some vague, unnamed force that dictated when he would whack his pelvis, or twist his ankle when he ran, or drop his phone on his face as he was lying down, and were always followed up with a few coins in the swear jar because he had standards to upkeep. They were never directed at anyone specific, however. That just wasn’t classy. Papyrus decided to make an exception. “YOU _BASTARD_ ,” he croaked, on the verge on tears.

  An odd look passed across Gaster’s face, and as quickly as it came it left. ”I... Have not heard that one in a while.”

  Papyrus wailed in fear, not for himself, but for his brother, his only family, and it made Gaster clutch his skull in pain. “OH G-GOD, OH GOD, YOU MIGHT, YOU MIGHT RA-- OH NO, I WOULD FEEL IT, PLEASE, PLEASE DON’T--”

  “In all honesty, I probably won’t. There’s a lot more fun in in the chase.”

  “’PROBABLY’?”

  “Probably. I can’t feel guilt, after all. But I do love a challenge.”

  Papyrus stood there, shaking, shuddering with anger, fat tears rolling down his face into his clenched jaw, into his nasal bone. Gaster looked back, static, and Papyrus saw all his own physical flaws magnified in Gaster’s ugliness, his brow bone sat too high on his face, his nasal bone tapered off into blackness unevenly, his shoulders were too wide for his frame, giving the impression he would topple over at any second, he was too tall, he was too thin, he was too loud. But they were his flaws, _his_ flaws, not Gaster’s. Gaster had enough of those already. Papyrus leaned forward, fists clenched, and Gaster leaned forward in turn to challenge him, licking his teeth sensually in a taunt.

  “I, THANK GOD, STILL HAVE A SOUL. I CAN LOVE SANS. I CAN FEEL GUILT. BUT I WILL PURSUE YOU AS IF I DID NOT. YOU WILL GO TO THE KITCHEN. YOU WILL PICK OUT A KNIFE FROM THE DRAWER. YOU WILL PLUCK OUT THE SHRAPNEL AND LET ME BACK IN. AND THEN YOU WILL NEVER, EVER COME NEAR US AGAIN.”

  Gaster held Papyrus’ face tenderly, as if he were cupping a breast. “I won’t. Of course I won’t.”

  Papyrus resisted the urge to gag, and stayed rigid, resolute. “THEN YOU HAVE MADE A TERRIBLE MISTAKE.”

  “Oh, I’m sure I have. Now do you mind? I did not plan to have a naked man rocket out of the void to scream at me today, and you’re throwing my schedule off. I need to sleep, drink some water, take some painkillers, cum, and then get up to apologize to Sans. You had a busy life, you understand.”

  Papyrus dissipated, not because he was told, but because he did not want to be present for any of that, to witness this hedonistic sham of his life. But not without a plan, a desperate, reckless one, but a plan nonetheless. He let Gaster think he had been cowed. That he had given up.

  Gaster settled back into his warm, comfortable bed, wriggling around to let the plush duvet settle into the gaps in his body, and sighed contentedly. Even his headache could not bring him down. He settled into a warm, comfortable sleep, his blanket womb-like around him.

 

* * *

 

 

  As Gaster slept, as his mind retreated from the body to float and dream and think, Papyrus tried something exceptionally unlikely. He sat in the field that was now his, torn from a story book, with a tattered blue sky that frayed to white at its edges, that trickled in black from its dome like pus, the clouds hanging as if held in place by pins. He summoned all of his effort, all of his determination, all of his love for Sans, and willed himself, his real self, his true self, the one that had been taken over, to move.

  He felt a finger twitch. That was all. He collapsed in an exhausted heap, but it was all he needed.

  Papyrus needed to strike while Gaster slept, needed to concentrate all of his effort, all of his energy, before he was forced to participate in something loathsome. He owed that to Sans.

  There was little time.

 

* * *

  

  “I MADE APOLOGY PANCAKES!”

  Sans sat awkwardly in the kitchen chair, watching his brother hover nearby, holding a steaming plate filled with fluffy, perfect pancakes, topped with ice-cream and honey. Gaster had donned that stupid pink apron Papyrus was so fond of. Sans blinked, once, then twice, having only had a few hours sleep.

  Gaster let his features settle into what he knew to be embarrassment. “I KNOW I, UM, SAID TOO MUCH LAST NIGHT. I’M SORRY ABOUT THAT. I DON’T THINK I’LL EVER DRINK THAT MUCH AGAIN.”

  Sans sighed in relief, the outburst finally on its way to being settled. He was worried something had happened, that something had went seriously wrong. Trust his brother to be an honest drunk. He took the plate, and Gaster sat opposite, plopping his own plate down on the counter, the ceramic clinking against the surface. “hey, look, don’t worry about it. who hasn’t said dumb shit when they were drunk, right? i’ve done the whole ‘get plastered, sleep with strangers’ thing myself. but, uh... doin’ that because it’s fun is one thing, you aren’t trying to make yourself feel better about something, right?”

  “OH NO,” Gaster reassured, cutting off a small square, dipping it in the ice-cream. He had never tasted pancakes before. "NOTHING LIKE THAT. IT WAS MY FIRST REAL DAY OF FREEDOM ON THE SURFACE, MY FIRST DAY OF REALLY DRINKING, I SUPPOSE, AND IT GOT A LITTLE OUT OF HAND.”

  Sans gently pushed the ice-cream to the side of his plate with his fork, picked up the uppermost pancake with his hand, folded it over and took a large bite, letting Gaster peep absentmindedly at his ragged maw. No wonder speaking was agonizing, they did not sit at teeth, they sat as bone shards that just happened to function as teeth. “i always thought you were more of a, um... traditionalist, i guess. you know what i’m getting at. i thought you were gonna save all that stuff for, y’know, your first real relationship?”

  “I TOLD YOU THAT WHEN I WAS THIRTEEN, WHEN YOU SAT ME DOWN, I THINK. IT’S NATURAL FOR MY OPINION TO CHANGE A LITTLE, ISN’T IT?” Gaster gingerly brought the treat to his mouth, biting off a small piece, unintentionally letting out a low, long sigh as he tasted them. Sans quirked an eyebrow. They were very good pancakes, the fancy kind, made with Greek yogurt and blueberries.

  “oh shit, i remember that! damn, i really threw all that stuff at you at once, didn’t i?”

  “YOU DID.”

  “probably shouldn’t have started that conversation with ‘please, god, don’t get anybody pregnant’.”

  “THAT DID PUT ME ON THE BACK FOOT.”

  Sans shrugged. “still, never really had you pinned as that type of guy. well, if you’re gonna be doin’ that...” He crammed the last of the first pancake in his mouth, chewed remnants sticking out a little, before he began picking at the second. “have fun, don’t get hurt. it’s not somethin’ i really want to think about, but i would be a really shitty brother if i started gettin’ all judgmental, right? but the second i think you’re drinkin’ too much, i’m gonna call you out--”

  “YOU DON’T NEED TO WORRY, REALLY. I DO APPRECIATE YOUR CONCERN. AGAIN, I’M SORRY I WAS SO OBVIOUS ABOUT THE... WELL, YOU KNOW.”

  “no biggie. like you said, you’re an adult, you apologized, it’s all good. you ever want to talk about this stuff, i can give you some advice, but please don’t narrow it down to _fluids_ , alright?”

  “I’M MORTIFIED,” Gaster lied, ever the actor.

  “i knew you would be.” Sans focused his efforts on chewing, having eaten too much at once. “dude? dude. these are amazing. you should say gross shit all the time, if this is what i get,” he chuckled, picking up his fork to pick at his ice-cream.

  Gaster laughed back, truly, this time; lowly, deeply. “CONSIDER THAT NOTED.”

 

* * *

 

  The apartment itself was very plainly decorated; Sans never had the inclination to spruce up the place and Gaster himself did not care, but he knew Papyrus would have, so he pestered Sans about the color of the kitchen, about the kind of paint they should get, about where the furniture should go and why, and every time Sans would laugh and say ‘go nuts’. So far it had only been restrained to Gaster’s room, as he could get away with just decorating that to Papyrus’ tastes and leaving the rest of the house plain. The walls were a deep, dark red, the color of split flesh, with posters and knick-knacks dotted around in organized clumps; figures and statues and mementos all organised in the way Papyrus would have done so; display pieces to the front, the cheaper, tackier figures to the back. He had bought Sans a bed, a real one, with a wooden frame so sturdy it could probably withstand a nuclear blast, and topped it with a brand new mattress and duvet, real duck down, cotton and cool, clean sheets. Sans had looked thrilled. Genuinely so.

  “aw, you didn’t have to splurge on me, man.” He sat down on it gracelessly, chortling contentedly as it softly shifted and sprung underneath him, “i feel kinda bad now, you built it and everything.”

  “IT’S HARDLY SPLURGING! YOU SLEEP A LOT, AND I WANTED TO MAKE SURE YOU ARE COMFORTABLE! I MEAN A MATTRESS ON THE GROUND? REALLY?” Gaster sat down with him, feeling the mattress sink under his own weight.

  “hey, i could get to sleep, so what was the issue?”

  “IT’S A MATTRESS! ON THE GROUND! WHAT ARE WE, SAVAGES?”

  Sans looked at it, giving it a press with his hand, showing great restraint. Ooh, plush.

  “YOU MAY JUMP INTO IT.”

  Sans rubbed his hands, kicking off his sneakers in anticipation, his blue hoodie making him stand out against the fine white wallpaper of his room. “i’m gonna take the most expensive nap in the world.”

  Sans burrowed in, creaking out a low, satisfied groan that made Gaster want to pin him down and fuck him there and then.

  A sturdy bed was necessary for the things Gaster was planning to do to him. It was just pragmatic. Nothing more.

 

* * *

 

 

  “yo papyrus, you home?”

  Gaster was, but was still tired, and so elected to keep quiet. He was not in the mood for conversation today and his room provided great solace.

  Sans plonked the plastic bag on the kitchen counter, hastily grabbing its contents and stuffing them in the fridge. “pap, you here?” he shouted, “i got all the stuff for dinner. i had a weird day, turns out little kids are shit scared of me...”

  He waited for an answer, in case Papyrus was in the shower, or exercising in his room, as he would always trill back a response to encourage Sans to finish his anecdote. There was none. Sans shrugged, taking the opportunity to open up a juice carton and take a long swig from it, wiping his mouth with his sleeve. An idea struck his mind. It was best to make sure Papyrus _really_ wasn’t home. He walked out into the hallway that connected the rooms together, making sure he would be heard.

  “pap?”

  Again, no answer.

  Gaster heard Sans sigh contentedly, popping his back with a low grunt that settled and throbbed in his bones. With a little spring in his step and a whistle, Sans jaunted to his room, already loosening his sweatpants, and the bed springs heaved as he tossed himself onto them, letting out a long, relieved chuckle for his own benefit. It had been a while.

  Their breaths hitched in unison, though Gaster made the effort to be quiet. Luckily for him, Sans thought he did not need to.

  Gaster had plucked himself from his bed to rest against the wall that separated their rooms, so he could intrude further, so he could listen in on the sounds Sans was making. He braced one arm to the wall and fucked himself. Sans groaned lowly, the noise muffled through the wall, and Gaster could not help but groan back in return, before clamping his free hand to his mouth, cursing himself. The noises from the other side of the wall stopped immediately.

  “oh _fuck_! h-hey papyrus, i, uh, _fuck_ , was, uh-- pushups, i was doing pushups, finally started exercising after you bugged me, h-heh, but now i’m tired, goodnight!”

  “NO YOU WEREN’T,” Gaster rasped, a risky idea forming, “YOU WERE MASTURBATING. I KNOW. I WAS, TOO.”

  Gaster heard Sans gasp in a way that was far, far different than the ones he had already heard. He heard him stand up, shakily, if the uneven creaks of the mattress were any indication, and then he heard pacing, he heard it pick up, then slow down, from corner to corner, wall to wall. He heard Sans ramble out loud, long slurs of words that didn’t amount to anything but total, all encompassing embarrassment. Gaster listened as he lazily tended to himself. Sans’ breathing slowed as he attempted to salvage both his own dignity and his brother’s. The world sometimes had an unfortunate way of playing tricks on you, and Papyrus would no doubt be twice as mortified.

  “heh, r-real unpleasant coincidence, right? guess that’s the problem with livin’ with your brother, gross stuff like that’s gonna happen, i guess. they say some people do that with their menstrual cycles, or some shit. real embarrassing right now, like, wow, but we’re both adults that can laugh about this--”

  “IT WASN’T A COINCIDENCE.”

  Dead, stone silence. The only thing that dared to penetrate it was the shuffling of fabric and quickened breathing on Gaster’s end.

  “ _what_.”

  “YOU HEARD.”

  Sans retched, before steadying himself. Voice wavering with denial, with disgusted tears that would tear themselves from his sockets and pound against his bones violently, he sat back down on his bed in disbelief. ”p... p-papyrus?”

  Hearing his new name, hearing it languish and hang in Sans’ throat, did it. Gaster yelped, finished, then peeled himself off the wall to sleep soundly, deeply, bathed in afterglow. He would have continued but his body shook too much.

  Sans, in a daze, in a time he could not pin down, did not fall asleep. He passed out when the weight of his eyes became too much, disgust twisting on the hollow insides of his bones.

 

* * *

 

  Gaster was making eggs and whistling a ditty, and Sans sat at the kitchen table, recoiling, every part of him pointing away from his brother.

  “papyrus,” he began, shakily, “what the fuck was... was last night?”

  Gaster played dumb, his expressions pinpoint in their accuracy, seemingly genuine in his inquiry. “WHAT WAS WHAT?”

  “you. last night. now you fuckin’ know what i’m on about.”

  “I DON’T! DID YOU HAVE A BAD DREAM?”

  “no! no, i--” Sans paused. “no, i’m pretty sure you, that you--”

  Gaster took the eggs of the stove, before marching over to Sans, ducking down. He feigned worry, pressing his hand to Sans’ forehead to feel for a temperature. Sans froze under the contact before finding himself, peeling Gaster’s hand off.

  “you... i think you jerked off to the thought of me, and you need help--”

  Gaster faked horrified tears, his voice high and wobbling and shaky, pathetic, absolutely pathetic. “SANS, THAT’S... THAT’S DISGUSTING. YOU’RE MY BROTHER, HOW COULD YOU ACCUSE ME OF, OF--”

  “don’t lie. don’t you dare lie, papyrus.”

  Gaster wailed. Threw in a couple of retches for good measure, gross, wet ones that rang out through their home. “OH GOD, OH GOD, THAT’S _REPULSIVE_! YOU’RE MY BROTHER--”

  Sans knew when Papyrus was lying, or at least when something was off. He looked to Papyrus’ face, his facial expressions, the way he was doubled over as he heaved into the kitchen sink, his body language and it looked genuine, it all looked genuine, which left the very pressing concern of; did that really happen?

  No.

  It must have.

  It was so clear.

  “I DON’T KNOW WHAT’S HAPPENED TO YOU,” Gaster sobbed, his mind distant, coldly calculating what made him look the most upset, “BUT I CAN HELP. E-EVEN WHEN YOU ACCUSE ME OF THESE TERRIBLE THINGS, I-I’LL STAND BY YOU.”

  “but you--” Sans paused. Had he... Had he just fallen asleep as soon as he hit the bed, and dreamed the rest? It wouldn’t have been the first time he had done that, it was comfortable, but to have such a grotesque dream, one that sunk into the pit of his ribs and weighed him down with its unease--

  Gaster had stopped heaving, instead focusing his efforts on making that little hiccup Papyrus would make when he tried to stop crying, useless little intakes of air that did nothing but shake more tears out of him.

  “... oh fuck. oh fuck, oh fuck, i just dreamed that shit, didn’t i? oh fuck, papyrus, i’m so--”

  “IT’S FINE,” Gaster sniffed, fresh tears cascading down his cheeks and into his mouth. “EVERYONE HAS STRANGE DREAMS SOMETIMES, I DON’T THINK YOU ACTUALLY LIKED THE THOUGHT OF ME-- OF ME--”

  Sans cringed. He was a fucking idiot, of course he was, of course Papyrus would never, never do something like that, would never dare compromise the bond they had. Papyrus was telling the truth, he reeked of it, fat salty tears and great quivers of disgust, not a single point of his demeanor indicating lies.

  “look, look, you don’t have to come out with it, i’m, god, what the fuck have i done--”

  “YOU HAVE TO BE MORE CAREFUL. WE BOTH KNOW YOU’VE HAD PROBLEMS IN THE PAST--”

  Sans nodded grimly, feeling like dirt.

  “SO IT’S ONLY NATURAL THAT YOU WILL HAVE STRANGE DREAMS, RIGHT? BUT I THINK IT’S IMPORTANT TO REMEMBER THAT THEY AREN’T REAL, THEY WILL NEVER BE REAL.”

  “it felt real,” Sans choked.

  “BUT IT WASN’T.”

  Sans paused, before raising his shuddering arms towards Gaster, who took the embrace. Sans was mumbling reassurances to himself that Gaster ate up anyway.

  “’m so fuckin’ sorry, ‘m so sorry, i never thought you’d do somethin’ like that, not really, i’m such a fuckin’ idiot, ‘m so, so sorry...”

  Gaster huffed in what appeared to be forgiveness, but was in fact, satisfaction.

  Slow and steady, after all. It was all a matter of increasing the pressure slightly, then waiting, then turning the dial again, and waiting.

  Gaster was very good at waiting.

 

* * *

 

  Papyrus, no matter what had happened, no matter how he suffered, needed to persevere, needed to hold on until Gaster would fall asleep, then would unleash all of his strength in an effort to move, feeling dense weights against his limbs, like moving through tar. He had graduated to moving his left arm slowly, painfully, in circles, every spasm of his limb more fatiguing than the last. But he was getting the knack down.

  His expression remained locked, but he felt tears down his face. He couldn’t become numb to it all. He needed to regain control before Gaster did something terrible.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> papyrus comes screaming out of the void, starts regaining control when gaster snoozes, then gaster jerks off to the small skel who thinks he's going insane.


	4. Tempered

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> if you've come this far, i appreciate you sticking it out! i'm aware it's pretty cringe-inducing. ^-^; gaster may have a few issues he needs to work through

  Another day, another plate of pancakes, another attempt to make Sans feel better. That is to say, it was an opportunity to sell the story Gaster had conjured. It was amazing what you could get away with if you say it with enough conviction. Sans picked at them, every bone heaving with guilt.

  “i’m... i’m not gonna go into work today. they can manage without me, just-- i’m not up to it.”

  Gaster saw an opportunity present itself, and exploited it as best he could. “THAT SEEMS LIKE A GOOD IDEA. IT’S ONLY A HOTDOG STAND, IT’S NOT AS IF IT’S GOING TO EXPLODE WITHOUT YOU. IT’S BEEN A HARD DAY,” he soothed, the insult caked in sugar, seemingly unintentional. Sans’ pride stung, but he moved on.

  “thanks for makin’ me breakfast again.”

  “IT’S NO PROBLEM, REALLY! I’M HERE TO HELP YOU!”

  “yeah. i know.” He resumed picking at the pancakes, tearing off little dots with his fingers and popping them in his mouth mechanically. Out of habit, he tore off a chunk between his fingers and ate it, knowing objectively that it tasted nice, but not able to appreciate it as he pulped it in his jaw.

  “WHY DO YOU EAT LIKE THAT?”

  “like what?”

  “LIKE SOMEBODY IS GOING TO STEAL THE FOOD FROM YOUR MOUTH.”

  Sans slowed his chewing, then stopped. “it’s an old habit.”

  “THAT ISN’T AN EXPLANATION.”

  “yeah,” he replied, eyes heavy and dark with mirth, with things he didn’t want to talk about. “it is.”

  “BUT THAT’S IN THE PAST!” Gaster chirped, having settled on his method of grinding Sans down, of making him his, of breaking his willpower in little ways. “YOU DON’T NEED TO EAT LIKE AN ANIMAL ANYMORE!”

  Sans reeled, before slumping once again. “yeah. sorry.” He picked up the fork, and prodded at his breakfast, face balanced on one of his hands.

  Gaster ate his as well, and they tasted just as sweet as they had the day before, light and decadent. He might take up baking. Cooking, maybe? He called on his knowledge of Sans, how his mind ticked, how he fell for bluffs and double bluffs. “WHAT’S WRONG? ARE YOU ALRIGHT?”

  Sans blinked, eyes bleary. “hmm? nah... nah. that dream really spooked me, is all. i feel guilty.”

  “YOU DON’T NEED TO FEEL GUILTY,” Gaster soothed falsely, “I’LL ALWAYS SUPPORT YOU.”

  Sans looked grim, dark humor hiding genuine sullenness. “you shouldn’t need to. not all the time.”

  It had worked. The guilt was crushing, now. Good.

  Sans sighed, slow and long, as if steadying himself. “’m not hungry, paps. sorry.” He let the fork clank uselessly against the wooden surface of the table, sunlight beaming in, doing nothing to lift his spirits.

  “... DO YOU WANT TO TALK ABOUT SOMETHING ELSE? IT MIGHT HELP DISTRACT YOU.”

  “yeah,” Sans huffed, forcing himself to smile for his brothers sake. “yeah, sure, why not. how about... i dunno, what’s goin’ on with you today?”

  Gaster took another bite, reached for his glass of milk and took a long swig. Milk made sweet things taste better, but he wasn’t sure why. “I HAVE A DAY OFF TODAY! TOMORROW I HAVE TO MEET WITH UNDYNE AND DO GUARD THINGS, SINCE I’M FIRST LIEUTENANT.”  

  “what does a first lieutenant even do?”

  “PAPERWORK, MOSTLY. MEETING WITH IMPORTANT HUMANS. IT’S A LITTLE INTIMIDATING, HAVING SO MANY EYES ON YOU AT ONCE, SCRUTINIZING YOU, EVEN IF YOU THINK YOU KNOW WHAT YOU’RE DOING.”

  Sans leaned back, letting a wave of nostalgia wash over him. “yeah, tell me about it. reminds me of all my old lab work.”

  Gaster furrowed his brow, genuinely. “WHAT? YOU’RE INTELLIGENT, YOUR WORK WAS--” He caught himself before he spoke with authority, rather than assumption. “--PROBABLY VERY GOOD.”

  “eh, maybe. i dunno. my boss was kinda biased, i think, my work was probably total garbage.”

  Gaster pushed the plate away from himself, curious, already knowing what Sans thought up to a certain point, but hearing it articulated and seeing brief glimpses were something totally different.

  “... i ever tell you about that guy?” He started, absentmindedly. “apart from, like, the standard ‘work was dull’ conversations?”

  “NO, I DON’T BELIEVE YOU HAVE.”

  Sans settled in his chair, thinking back, and Gaster prepared himself to conjure another false story about how he died, to plug the less obvious gaps in Sans’ memory if needed. “he was kind of weird. nice dude, i guess. had a real rough time, from what he told me. fuckin’ old. like, really old.”

  “I’VE HEARD HE WAS COOL, AND HANDSOME.”

  “if you’re into that kinda thing, i guess, he was mostly made of smoke. wasn’t much to his body, y’know?" Sans sipped his coffee, mulling over his next statement, weighing it up in his mind. “i... think he had a little crush on me? not, like, a full blown ‘tear your shirt off in the rain’ kinda thing, but a small one.”

  Gaster blinked. “WHAT MADE YOU THINK THAT?”

  “he was always super nice to me. gave me an advance on my wage before i had even started, let me name the core, always hung out with me on breaks even though he didn’t need to eat. he had kind of a dark sense of humor, but i think that’s just somethin’ you pick up after being around for that long. ‘gallows humor’, i think it’s called.”

  “DID YOU LIKE HIM BACK?”

  Sans shook his head emphatically. “not romantically. ‘m just not wired for that. but, like, would i have slept with him? uh, i dunno. maybe?” He lolled his head in thought, left to right, before shaking his head again. “... nah, probably not.”

  Gaster breathed out an, “OH,” and to his consternation he was not sure what part of that statement had upset him.

  “the age gap would have been way too weird, plus he was my boss. that’s cool in shitty romance novels, but if things got awkward he could have fired me, y’know? plus i don’t think he had, uh... anythin’ to work with, if you catch my drift.”

  Gaster nodded as if he did not know what the answer could have been, when of course he did, but speaking candidly about his former body’s genitalia seemed like far too much of a giveaway, and so he let Sans speak.

  Sans let himself become animated again, the conversation pushing his issues from his mind, replacing fresh pain with a distant one that was easier to laugh at. “i mean, i’m not even sure what i would have got out of that kinda arrangement. would have been like having sex with a lava lamp. like fuckin’ a tub of silly putty. for the novelty alone, maybe, that would have been one hell of a story. sure, i would get off, but damn, at what cost?”

  “SANS!” Gaster blared, and it was genuine, not a mockery of Papyrus’ mannerisms.

  Sans put his hand over his mouth, having just realized what he had said. “... sorry, sorry, that was gross. heh, and i was gettin’ pissy at you for bein’ specific.” He shrugged, drinking his lukewarm, bitter coffee. “i felt bad for him. that kinda thing wouldn’t have worked, not on any level. the dude would have wanted a romantic relationship, right? ‘cause he couldn’t feel anythin’ physically, so... he wouldn’t get what he wanted, i wouldn’t get what i wanted. i think he knew that, and i’m pretty thankful. he never tried anythin’. but like i said, i’m not one hundred percent. i could be misreadin’ signals, i’ve done that before.”

  He stopped, looking out of the window, voice low with empathy. “god... the dude’s dead. which is kind of a weird thing to think about. i’m not sure how to really process that outside of, i dunno, jokes. i don’t want to speak ill of him, not really, he was a chill guy. i always thought he fell in, but to be honest, i dunno... whatever was goin’ on with him, was it... bad enough to commit suicide over?”

  Gaster stayed quiet, and Sans assumed it was due to the somberness of the topic.

   Sans became heavier still, his demeanor dark and weighted. "the smell. i can't ever forget the smell. tried to drown it out with cheap booze, but i'll always remember it. the burnin'. what a way to go."

  There was an odd fact to reconcile. Dr. Gaster, the man that had suffered, and lived, and dreamed, would have found what he was doing morally repugnant on every possible level. Gaster, the creature that swarmed and groped, did not, and though they were technically the same person it sat uneasily in his stomach. Souls were strange, like that. Take them away and all you have left is a creature driven by wants and needs and lusts, with no morals to temper them. He could recall his life well, he could see the reasoning behind the decisions he had made, either in spite, or in earnest, honest-to-god kindness, but he could no longer understand the latter. He did know he had feelings for Sans, at one point. He knew he did not act on them as they would never be returned in the way he had once wanted. He did not want to dwell. He was a man that had transcended everything he had once known, casting off the shackles of his former life, the same in name only, with only his memories and his magic. He needed a distraction. He thought of an excellent one.

 

* * *

 

  Gaster was going to cum.

  He fucked and fucked and fucked until finally, after all the effort, after all the strain, he came, over screeching bedsprings and sore, reddened flesh, so strained it seemed as if it would split apart into viscera at the slightest tug. He thought of Sans shuddering underneath him, and yet, he found it lacking.

  That was... That was it? It felt as good as the other times, and yet, it didn’t. He forced himself to keep going, until eventually it became hellish, unbearable, and he pressed on, sickening, churning heat wrenching on the inside of his bones. That couldn’t have been it, there had to be something he was missing, had to be something wrong. He grit his teeth until they hurt, shuddering almost to the point of convulsions as he warped his figure over the Human he had picked up in another bar, and he gasped Sans’ name as he came again.

  It was...

  It was...

  Sort of fun, he supposed.

  Oh.

  That just... That wasn’t doing it for him anymore, not in the way it once did. He needed the real thing; this person had too much flesh, too much sinew, too many organs. He wanted to gut the man under him like a fish for not being Sans; pluck out his organs like overripe, stinking, fruit to see the wonderful structure underneath. He couldn’t without his cover being blown. Ugh. Stupid cunt. Even the novelty of finding a Human willing to sleep with him wasn’t enough to help.

 

* * *

 

  Papyrus had taken to appearing in the apartment when Gaster was awake and out, as there was nothing for him to really do. He could pretend he watched over Sans, as if there was no danger, like a spirit, a specter, a ghast. He would sit himself down in the living room and watch as Sans pottered from task to task distractedly, starting one thing, then moving to another, swapping back and forth all the time, none of them done to satisfaction. He was doing dishes at that moment, and Papyrus looked at him.

  Sans felt uneasy, and he could not pin down the cause. He knew the sum, and only knew a few of its parts, the rest a miasma that permeated the pores of his bones.

  Miserable did not even begin to cover the look on his face. Papyrus had seen him as they both endured the resets, and he had looked gaunt, eyes deep and smile flat. A lingering anhedonia that was difficult to shift, an apathy that swamped him. But Papyrus had never seen him in despair, true, honest despair, the kind you fall into when there are no appearances to keep up. Sans put the dish down, hastily dried his hand, then brought it to his face to weep quietly into, two or three tears that fell then stopped as quickly as they came, his shoulders heaving with something far heavier than sadness. Sans could no longer talk to his brother. He would just alienate him. He would dream terrible dreams, that he could not distinguish from reality, awful, sickening things, and he could not burden Papyrus with that. He would keep quiet. Papyrus had so much potential, so much promise, and he would be better equipped to fulfill them alone. He held a kitchen knife in his hand absentmindedly, felt the weight of it. That would hurt too much.

  His blasters were pretty powerful. Those seemed painless, one summon and--

  He blinked. What the fuck was he doing? He hastily put the knife away in the drawer, still wet, and walked to his room to breathe, letting out a low, dark laugh. He had thought he was getting better. Apparently not. That would have been too easy. He lay on his bed, fully clothed, his body begging him for sleep, and finally succumbed. Papyrus, in a daze, had followed him, dropping to his knees at the end of the bed, pretending that his grip on Sans’ hand could be felt.

  “I’M SORRY I LEFT YOU BEHIND. PLEASE DON’T DO THIS. I LOVE YOU. YOU WOULD BE HAPPY IF GASTER WASN’T TORTURING YOU. I’M SORRY. I LOVE YOU--”

  Sans dreamed quietly, fearfully, alone.

 

* * *

   
  Gaster had come home angry and sober, and Papyrus had dissipated as soon as he heard the noise, not wanting to compromise his plan. Gaster shut the door with a sigh and a click, feeling unfulfilled. He weighed up his options, planned his next move. He was pretty tired. He could go for a catnap, that might help.

  Papyrus felt hope, small, gentle hope, blossom in his heart. He might be able to regain control long enough to warn Sans, or get up, or do something.

  Gaster cast his eyes to the living room, saw the blue hoodie discarded on the couch, the dirty dishes still by the sink. Sans was home. He was sleeping, most likely. He was dreaming. Supple. Vulnerable.

  Good. Nevermind the catnap.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Apologies for the slightly shorter chapter, but the subject matter makes it quite difficult to write for long periods of time.


	5. Sleep

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (ONE MILLION TRIGGER WARNINGS FOR UPSETTING SEXUAL CONTENT LIKE HOO LORDY)

  Gaster, with an uncommon grace borne of a lifetime of formlessness, slipped into Sans’ room, placing himself delicately at the foot of the bed, the soft mattress shifting under his weight. Sans did not rouse, did not even move. Were he not still there in body Gaster would have assumed he was dead. Sans’ room was sparse, plain, easily mistaken for a prison if not for the large bookcase on the wall, filled with sci-fi novels, various works of fiction he had intended to gorge on but had never gotten around to reading, a bedside table, and a plump bed, Sans nestled softly in the middle. He looked peaceful. The window wasn’t open, and Sans had been asleep in the heat for what Gaster had assumed was a couple of hours, and so the room smelled of him, like him, not the smell of soap or deodorant, but him. Gaster breathed it in. It was delightful, intoxicating, and unbearable. Sans had kicked the covers off in his sleep, trying to lessen the heat, lying on his back, his shirt bunched up to expose his ribs. Tentatively, Gaster rested his hand on Sans’ leg, a gesture that could have been easily mistaken for comfort. Again, he did not rouse, but he let out a small snort, a snore that had been trapped in his maw. Adorable.

  Gaster pressed one thumb to Sans’ pubis over his sweatpants, and Sans groaned, reacting entirely to stimulus with no context as he slept, and drew gentle, languid strokes, back and forth, back and forth, pacing with his digits, just enough to arouse him. All at once, he stopped, softly placing his hand back on Sans’ lower leg, a place it was perfectly acceptable for a sibling to touch, and rubbed soothing circles into the bone, scraping gently with the sharper portion of his finger. Sans shifted his legs uncomfortably, thrusting uselessly once or twice as his dreams shifted to accommodate what his body was feeling, completely unaware of the world except for the fact that he felt kind of nice.

  Growing bolder, Gaster dipped down, running his finger up Sans’ neck and puffing out his name. He wanted to go further, he needed to go further. but he couldn’t, not yet, not quite. It was all about time, about pressure, about making Sans doubt every action so he could not retaliate with catastrophic fury.

  He leaned down next to Sans’ face, and moaned his name.

  Finally he stirred, confused, blearily opening his eyes, trapped in the first few seconds of wakefulness that made it difficult to remember who you were and what you were doing. He lowered his pelvis, locking his hips to the bed. He lay still, trying to recall his dreams. Did he... Did he just have a sex dream? He sat up, glancing around his room, the information slowly trickling back to him. He had heard someone moan his name, that he was sure.

  Nobody there. He could hear Papyrus in the kitchen finishing up the dishes. He blinked once, slowly, then twice, but his eyes remained fixed as he realized what had just occurred, dark pools that ate up the light. His brother. Papyrus. He had heard his brother.

  Angry, bitter, loathsome tears sat in his sockets. Scum. Sans was scum. He did not want to think of those things, but they tormented him in his sleep. He could not sleep again, he could not bear it, he could not bear the very idea. Slowly he sat up, cursing himself, cursing his mind, the way it operated designed to torture him in everything. Poor Papyrus. To have such a disgusting creature as a brother. Poor, innocent Papyrus. Shakily, he stood up, pacing back and forth, swearing then and there that he would not tell Papyrus anything, would not accuse him of awful, abominable things again, if his life were to be hell then he would endure it alone, for Papyrus’ sake, always for Papyrus’ sake.

  The real Papyrus was shrieking. Yelling, screeching, tearing great, soggy clumps out of the viscous gel of his face, the imitation of bone, gargling every single curse he could conjure, feeling them wriggle and spew from his maw in white-hot clumps, like swollen maggots that gorged on his fury, knowing that, if he wanted to truly save Sans, he could not intervene. He could feel it, could see it, could only heave and gag and weep, hear it resonate in the void over and over and over. If he were to appear in front of Gaster as he systematically broke his brother, then Gaster would escalate immediately to something worse out of spite, because that was what he did. At the slightest challenge he would ramp up. If Papyrus were to swoop in, and Gaster caught even the slightest hint of his plans then he would forfeit sleep forever, as it was entirely recreational. It was something he did for fun. Everything he did was for _fun_ , fucking  _fun_.

  There would be no forgiveness for this. Not now that Sans was suffering. Papyrus was already a murderer. Papyrus was already beyond redemption in his own eyes. There would be soft words, there would be no soothing platitudes borne of naivete, there would be no kind, gentle things as Papyrus himself was neither kind, nor gentle. Not anymore. He felt his soul beat weakly in his chest, an abominable thing he wished he could cast off, if it meant he could hurt Gaster that much more.

  He tore and tore and tore at himself, his body reconstituting quickly as he did so, until he could do nothing but gargle and scream, tearing and tearing and tearing and tearing and tearing, it was all he could do, all he could do, he could not intervene if he wanted to keep Sans safe, it was all he could do, over and over and over, fat swells of bone falling apart in his hands as he thrashed.

  “YOU BASTARD-- YOU BASTARD-- I’LL KILL YOU, I’LL _KILL YOU!_ DO YOU HEAR ME, GASTER? I WILL _KILL YOU!_ ”

  
  
  Gaster applauded his own speed, scrubbing away at particularly stubborn coffee stain, pink apron tied neatly, aware of the fact that Sans had difficulty coming to after a deep sleep, stumbling and grasping for facts as he put himself back together. Satisfied at the cleanliness of the cup, still feeling the lingering warmth of Sans’ groin on his hand, he put it on the drying rack and continued. He had suckled at his finger as he walked out, desperate to taste him. It pained Gaster to wash Sans away like that, but sometimes sacrifices had to be made for the greater good.

  He heard shaky footsteps, bone clicking against the varnished wood of the hallway floor like the pattering of a loyal dog to his master.

  “SANS!” Gaster blared, making a show of washing up, not turning around. “YOU ONLY HALF DID THE DISHES! GOD, MUST YOU BE SO LAZY? SLEEPING IN THE MIDDLE OF THE DAY AS WELL?”

  Sans had his head peeped in the doorway, like he were being scolded by a parent, shrinking and wavering. He was not in the mood to deal with this today. He was not in the mood to deal with anything. “i-i’m sorry, alright?”

  Gaster turned around, mimicking the concern Papyrus would undoubtedly show, brows furrowed and with a soft, soothing quality to his normally shrill voice, choosing to dull its edge. “SANS?”

  Sans’ eyes were fat with tears, the undersides of them crusty with ones he could not find the energy to truly shed. He dragged his arm across his nose, pasting snot to it, no longer caring about how he looked in any capacity. “’s nothin’. bad dream, is all. everybody cries in their sleep sometimes, right?”

  Gaster brought his hands to his mouth, his tombstone teeth that would click and drag, in ‘shock’. “OH, OH YOU HAD ANOTHER NIGHTMARE?”

  Sans nodded weakly, having propped himself up on the door-frame, his legs crippled with lethargy.

  “WHAT WAS IT ABOUT, ARE YOU ALRIGHT?”

  “i can’t remember,” Sans lied. “you... ever get that thing where you wake up from a really intense dream, but you can’t remember it, only how it made you feel? i... i got that.”

  Gaster resisted the urge to purr delightedly. “HOW DID IT MAKE YOU FEEL?”

  Sans dipped his head, staring at the floor tiles at his feet, stark white bone against glinting black. “terrible. fuckin’ awful. s’all you need to know, papyrus.”

  Gaster felt his features contort in confusion, but caught himself before he could fully express it. He had stimulated the pubic symphysis, why on Earth would that feel bad? It was an erogenous zone, he had been gentle, he had not driven nails into it, he was aware that under those conditions it must have felt very good, and yet Sans was complaining. Strange. When Papyrus had done it to himself it felt good. When Sans had done it to himself it had felt good. When Gaster had done it, however clumsily, however lacking in experience, it had felt good. Why would it feel ‘awful’ when performed on him, surely that added to the experience? He didn’t understand. Sans wasn’t usually so ungrateful when it came to favors; when someone held the door open for him in passing he would nod politely, when there was a home-cooked meal waiting for him after a hard day of doing nothing he would chow down and smile appreciatively, when he was complimented he would shrug, but the flush on his face would always betray his true feelings. It didn’t make any sense.

  Gaster resumed doing the dishes, allowing himself to quirk his brows in exasperation. Sans slunk to the kitchen table and sat down, holding his head in his hands. It looked like he was about to fall asleep again, but ever lull in his posture would be caught in a judder, before he righted himself.

  “YOU SHOULD GO BACK TO SLEEP, IF YOU’RE STILL TIRED.”

  “no,” Sans bit back, and Gaster put on his best ‘hurt’ expression. “no, sorry, that was harsh, sorry. i’m cool. really. if anythin’, i slept too long, y’know?” He laughed, and the way his shoulders slumped showed it was very, very false.

  “WELL, IF YOU’RE SURE. YOU KNOW WHAT’S BEST!” He chirped.

  They fell into silence, one Gaster knew was most likely awkward, but he hummed and hemmed and whistled as he worked, dutifully scrubbing dishes, losing himself in the repetitive motions, feeling the water swish through his bones. As he gently placed the last one on the rack to dry, he huffed in satisfaction, before turning on his heels to sit opposite Sans. He laid his hand over Sans’ smaller, chunkier one.  
  
  “SANS? I’M SORRY I GOT A LITTLE GRUMPY. YOU KNOW HOW HOUSEPROUD I AM. BUT PLEASE, NEVER FORGET, I LOVE YOU!”

  Sans shifted in his seat, bobbing his foot against the rest in discomfort, not feeling deserving of it. “i... i-i lo--i appreciate that, man, i just, i--” He lolled his head, attempting to crush his own self-loathing long enough to stutter out a sentence and failing. Gaster stayed quiet, supportively, fraternally quiet in an attempt to get Sans to speak.

  “... i-i love you, i-i’m sorry for bein’ so cagey, it’s just been a really bad day, y’know?”

  “IT SEEMS LIKE IT. YOU CAN TALK TO ME ABOUT ANYTHING, YOU KNOW. I WON’T JUDGE YOU. YOU CAN’T CONTROL YOUR DREAMS, THEY’RE JUST... WELL, THEY’RE VERY STRANGE SOMETIMES! I REMEMBER SEEING COLORS THAT DON’T ACTUALLY EXIST IN ONE OF MINE! DID THAT HAPPEN IN YOURS?”

  Grunting and thrusting and panting and _hating_ , _hating hating hating_ , sickening, churning repulsion that made him want to die so the world did not suffer another monster.

  “nah.”

  “THEN WHAT WAS IT? YOU CAN’T REMEMBER ANYTHING AT ALL?”

  Sans stayed quiet, his hand juddering under Gaster’s long, firm claw, that cupped and trapped his. Gaster leaned forward to pull him into a firm hug, and Sans recoiled, tearing his hand back. All at once he paused, before shaking his head, he couldn’t deal with this, he couldn’t, he needed to think.

  “you can’t--! i-- i’m sorry, i, i gotta--”

  He hastily excused himself, skittering back to his room, shutting the door with a solid crack that resonated through the house. Gaster let his face fall into neutrality once again. He actually would take that catnap, now. He could do with hot drink and a snooze. That seemed like a nice idea.

  Gaster knew when to stop, and this seemed a sufficient point, for now. He could not ramp up too quickly, as it would be obvious what he was doing. Slow and steady. Wait a few weeks. Gaster did not want Sans to break. He wanted Sans to bend.

  He wanted Sans to _kneel_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Gaster escalates, Sans questions his sanity and Papyrus starts to go off the deep end in this chipper chapter of the body swap horror


	6. Dream

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> shiny new warning on the fic, forgot to put it on earlier. ^-^; apologies

 

  
  The next few weeks were better. For Sans, at least. Comparatively. 

  Gaster kept up appearances, attended meetings and treaties, all with Undyne, all in his clunky, ceremonial armor, because what was a meeting without pomp, without tradition? He never actually needed to be there, not truly, as he was still the most junior member of the Guard, even if he did outrank the bulk as First Lieutenant, but Undyne had specifically requested his presence each and every time. Undyne was clad in her armor also, stood to attention, always directly to the left of Asgore as he spoke, as he avoided questions about the missing queen, always with an awful, vacuous gaze as he went through the motions. Gaster would always be on the opposite side, standing tall, quietly observing. The Guard was a shell of itself. There used to be Generals. There used to be Colonels. There used to be Majors. The Captains, though respected, only led a few hundred people at a time. Now there was only one Captain left to co-ordinate what little militaristic force they did have, as any title above that would have been nothing but excessive. That the Guard hadn’t collapsed in on itself was a testament to her dogged, unflappable determination, especially due to her youth and _especially_ due to her temperament. Gaster didn’t know her, not truly, he put up with her for the sake of appearances as Papyrus had loved her to bits, but even he admired her, if begrudgingly.

  If Papyrus were still ‘alive’, were still there, then this would have been his dream. The absolute pinnacle. The Monster population loved him and would celebrate him forever. The Human population were accepting, he hadn’t encountered any trouble, though he put that down to his horrifying appearance. He was regularly ‘showered with kisses’, both from Monsters and Humans with Monster leanings. Were he not trying to fuck Sans, and was far more conservative in who he slept with, then he knew Papyrus would have given his left arm to be in his place, which made it all that much funnier to him. Gaster thought it was fine. His life, the things he needed to put up with to do as he wanted, were acceptable, he supposed. His armor chafed.

  Sans worked his many jobs, the acquisition of which had been a mystery to even Gaster; he helped out at a hotdog stand in the city, he did dishes in a local restaurant, he worked a night-shift as a security guard, all of which he was disgustingly over-qualified for, but Gaster knew that he would probably avoid mentioning his education. There was less than one hundred Monsters alive with a true understanding of magic, and he was actively avoiding opportunities. It didn’t make sense. Gaster would broach the topic, Sans would say something self-defeatist, and then the conversation would come to a grinding halt. However, he was going to work, which was a promising sign.

  Gaster did not tamper with him as he slept, not in those few weeks. When you build something to your liking, even something as simple as a chair; you lay out the rough shape of what you want, then sand it, grind it down until it fits your original plan, and if something goes awry you make repairs until you can continue. You do not sand and sand and sand until it is a sliver, that snaps in half under the slightest exertion upon it, you want it to be molded to your whim. Slowly but surely, the life returned to Sans’ eyes as those terrible ‘dreams’ no longer haunted him, were cast off as an odd blip.

  Gaster dreamed. Gaster dreamed _vividly_. That was why he slept. It was always about Sans, that fact was unchanging, he was the focal point of every single one of his dreams, as they drifted and floated and merged into one another, though the other factors would change. Sometimes he imagined himself, his real self, his true self, his tar-like body, with Sans, and occasionally sickened himself with the saccharine nature of his thoughts, the kind he had mocked Papyrus for. There were candles, flowers, and the touches were ghosting and sweet, and on one occasion he imagined Sans saying ‘i love you’. He could not stand those, sentiments that could once be understood that were mockingly alien to him, now. He would make a point to think of depraved, awful things to make himself feel better; Pinning Sans down as he begged him to stop, all in Papyrus’ body, all in Papyrus’ voice, all in the way Papyrus moved. Breaking all of Sans’ limbs so he couldn’t leave, crushing his skull from behind in the way one would squish the cheeks of an especially cute animal, affectionately. Forcing Papyrus and Sans to enact his whims on one another for his own appreciation as they both wept bitterly. That was his favorite. That was the one he would cum to.

  He always woke up in odd positions. Sometimes with his arms outstretched and sore, as if he had been grasping at something for hours, sometimes with one leg out of the bed. On the most recent occasion, he had woken up upright, limbs locked to his side, swaying back and forth as if paralyzed with some toxin. It was strange. But if Sans was such a heavy sleeper, that would toss and turn and not understand who he was or where he was until wakefulness finally deigned to hit him, then it was not out of the question that his body would also be prone to parasomnias as these things tended to run in families. It did not seem to be a problem, more of an odd quirk, perhaps as a side effect of possession, a completely untested phenomenon. The strangest thing about it was that he, regardless of the position in which he slept, would always be craning towards the door.

 

* * *

 

  “yo, paps, you seen my keys?”

  Gaster looked up from his book, having scrounged one of Sans’ sci-fi novels. He tried, in earnest, to read one of Papyrus’ fantasy tomes, about wizards and dragons and chaste, insufferable knights, but found them to be unbearable. He made sure the pocket of his jeans was hidden from sight, having stashed Sans’ keys away. “NO. WHY, DID YOU LOSE THEM?”

  Sans shrugged, rooting around in the couch next to Gaster’s chair. “must have. i’m usually on the ball with stuff like this. weird.” He furrowed his brow, having caught his finger on something smooth. With a yank, it was out. A pen. He held it in his hands, twirling it back and forth to alleviate his frustrations. “you think i can pick the lock with this?”

  “NO.”

  “yeah. yeah, me neither, just tryin’ to be lazy. damn. yo, you mind if i borrow yours?”

  Gaster crossed one long, long leg over the other to better obscure his pockets. “YOU CAN’T, I’M HEADING OUT,” he lied, “AND IF I COME BACK BEFORE YOU I’LL BE LOCKED OUTSIDE!”

  Sans cringed at the image of his brother trapped outside the apartment, alone, in the cold, for hours. “fine, that’s pretty reasonable.” He narrowed his eyes, trying to remember where he last put them.

  “DID YOU CHECK THE LITTLE DISH BY THE DOOR? ISN’T THAT WHERE YOU USUALLY KEEP THEM?”

  “yeah,” he admitted, “i checked it three times, though, so they definitely ain’t there. ugh, if i’m late again my boss is gonna cut my pay, and i’m pretty sure he’s already stiffin’ me anyway, on account of being a monster.”

  “YOU KNOW,” Gaster said, absentmindedly toying with the edge of the pages, “YOU COULD GET BACK INTO SCIENCE. EXPERIMENTAL WORK, OR TEACHING--?”

  Sans stiffened, then relaxed. “no.”

  “AND WHY NOT?”

  “it’s just... no. it’s not a good idea.”

  “ _WHY?_ ”

  “’cause i’d screw it up, alright? i just... i just would, things go wrong, and the last time things went wrong someone died. i’m fine doin’ what i’m doin’.”

  There was a silence between them. Gaster felt it best to move on, to pander.

  “... DID YOU CHECK YOUR ROOM? YOU SOMETIMES FALL ASLEEP WITH YOUR JACKET ON, MAYBE THEY FELL ON THE FLOOR.”

  Sans groaned. “boy, i really regret not cleaning the floor now. i’m gonna need to cram myself under the bed to check.” He snapped his fingers, and the air an inch above his palm crackled into life with a vibrant blue light that cast the room in a sickly glow, a makeshift torch. “thanks, pap.”

  “IT’S NO PROBLEM. IF YOU SEE THEM AND CAN’T REACH, JUST SHOUT FOR ME, I’LL PICK THEM UP LIKE ONE OF THOSE CRANE-GAMES YOU SEE AT FUNFAIRS.”

  “you’ll drop it sixty times, and then charge me tons of money?”

  “EXACTLY!”

  “noted. i’m off spelunking.”

  “GODSPEED.”

  Sans did a mock salute as he passed, his smaller legs forcing him to jog if he wanted to be on time. As Gaster heard him thud up the hallway in an uneven gait, one unused to running, he stood up, walked to the bowl by the door and gently set the keys down so as not to rattle them. Perfect. With a satisfied huff, he sat down once again, and set about reading. He heard Sans yell from his room.

  “holy shit!”

  Gaster looked to the bowl, confused, back to the door, and back to the bowl. “DID YOU FIND THEM?” He shouted back.

  “nah. found my wallet, though.”

  “I DIDN’T KNOW YOU HAD LOST THAT.”

  “honestly? neither did i.”

  Gaster heard Sans scoot himself out from the chamber under his bed, heard him mumble a curse as he stood up, popping his joints, heard him plod back through, sighing. “yeah, so they’ve vanished off the face of the earth. turns out there’s a key eatin’ black hole in our apartment.”

  “WHAT MAKES YOU THINK THAT?”

  “trust me paps, i’m the scientific authority in this room.”

  Gaster guffawed, sincerely, and Sans took it to be amusement. A plan sprung to mind. “WELL, I COULD JUST INVITE UNDYNE HERE INSTEAD! THAT WAY YOU CAN GO TO WORK, AND I CAN LET YOU BACK IN WHEN YOU RETURN!” He beamed, sunny and sweet and sickening.

  Sans breathed out a sigh of relief, walking towards their door. “phew, thanks, pap. once again, you’ve proven yourself to be a cool dude. i owe you a favor.”

  Gaster crushed his instinct to press into Sans at the statement and suckle at the back of his vertebrae, and joined him at the door. With a gasp and an exaggerated swing of his arm, he motioned to the bowl. “SANS, YOU LAZYBONES, DID YOU EVEN CHECK? THEY’RE RIGHT HERE!”

  “what, no they ain’t--” He stopped. There they were, in the place he was sure he had checked.

  Gaster applied his best ‘stern’ expression like a veneer of sickening paint, that could make even the most dedicated of slackers straighten their back and dip their head in guilt. Gaster picked them up before dropping them into Sans’ open palm, letting them jingle to make his point.

  Sans looked at them, narrowing his eyes. He was sure. That weight in the pit of his gut, like a filled balloon that swished to-and-fro with every breath, returned. He glanced to his brother, perhaps on the off-chance he had hidden them, on the off-chance he had played a delightful jape that had went too far in his ignorance. Nope, Papyrus looked genuinely riled. His brother was an open book. He laughed louder than anyone, and he cried at the slightest provocation; he just didn’t do lies, he was not so jaded as to hide what he was really feeling. So kind. So sincere. Sans must have been in the wrong.

  He was rattled. “i, uh... right. sorry, i thought--”

  “I ACCEPT YOUR APOLOGY. BOY, YOUR MIND HAS REALLY BEEN PLAYING TRICKS ON YOU LATELY, HASN’T IT?”

  He nodded, hiding his shaking with a shrug and a scuff of his sneakers. He unlocked the door, the kiddy-looking star keychain jingling, the one he had been given for his twelfth birthday. Papyrus had saved his pocket money to buy the cheap little thing, and even then it had taken two months. He loved it to pieces. It sat oddly in his palm.

 

* * *

 

 

  One week later, one week to the day, seven days, six hours, four minutes and thirty-five seconds, Gaster did it again. It was an empty cup, this time, one Sans had been drinking coffee out of placed strategically under the kitchen seat as they ate. Sans didn’t say anything, but slowed his eating to glance about the room, left then right, from the counters to the sink. He didn’t gorge anymore, didn’t cram food into his gullet as if he were still starving. Gaster smiled to himself. A habit he hated, trained out of Sans, a flaw that had been lost. It was a casserole. Pasta.

  “ARE YOU ALRIGHT? YOU LOOK SHIFTY.”

  “hmm? yeah, yeah, i’m fine. it‘s good pasta.”

  He resumed eating, having given up on the search for his empty cup, chewing methodically, one, two, three, swallow, bite, two, three--

  Gaster watched his teeth again. He would not mind having those teeth on him, grazing, biting.

  Sans gouged a meatball on his incisor in the same manner a head skewers on a pike. He winced. On second thought, perhaps not.

  “thanks for the meal. thanks for doin’ the dishes, too--”

  “NICE TRY.”

  Sans laughed uneasily. “yeah, worth a shot. you done with yours?”

  “I AM.”

  “better get this over with.”

  Sans leaned over, bracing himself against the chair as his feet didn’t touch the ground, scooped up Gaster’s plate and dumped it unceremoniously on top of his own.

  “i gotta say, _dishes_ a really borin’ job.”

  Gaster smirked, and Sans quirked his brow, looking delighted. He stood up, foot narrowly missing his cup, and trotted over to the sink, turning the hot water tap on and waiting, sighing as he did. Gaster quietly hooked his toe into the cup on the floor, before gently dragging it towards himself until it sat under his own chair, now totally out of sight.

  “COULD YOU DO ME A FAVOR, BEFORE YOU GET YOUR HANDS WET? CAN YOU REACH INTO THE CUPBOARD NEXT TO YOU? THERE’S A SNACK CAKE WITH MY NAME ON IT.”

  Sans chuckled. “i thought you were a health nut. ‘oh, that’s got too much fat in it’, ‘ooh, i gotta keep in shape’, ‘sans, don’t dip your chips in ketchup, what’s wrong with you’.”

  “WHAT CAN I SAY? YOUR PENCHANT FOR SNACKS HAS RUBBED OFF ON ME.”

  Sans had his back to Gaster, reaching up and over, his body straining to reach the top shelf.

  “AWW!”

  “c’mon, don’t do that! is this why you put them on the highest shelf?”

  “MAYBE.”

  “i’m a grown-ass man!”

  “YOU’RE A SHORT-ASS MAN.”

  Sans had no rebuttal, and conceded. Sighing in exasperation, he stood on the balls of his feet, falling just short. Seizing the opportunity, Gaster stood up, holding the cup, strode over, and slipped it in with the dishes. He couldn’t put it back on the table, it was too obvious. He plucked the package from the shelf with no effort, having craned over Sans to do so.

  “I APPRECIATE THE EFFORT NONETHELESS.”

  “hey, no problem. you ever need someone to flounder at your snacks for five minutes before you eat them, just gimmie a call.”

  “I’VE HEARD THAT HELPS WITH THE FLAVOR.”

  Sans stopped the tap, the basin filled with hot, soapy water, and began washing. He cleaned his coffee cup. He didn’t even flinch anymore.

 

* * *

 

 

  His dreams had started again. Or perhaps they hadn’t. He actually wasn’t sure. He would imagine figures panting under or over him, faceless bodies for him to project his frustrations onto, to bite and drag and rut, and though they had no features, though they had no true shape, he couldn’t truly let go, because what if the grey figures _became_ Papyrus, what if the figures _were_ Papyrus, his mind deciding to play cruel tricks on him. He couldn’t stop, as much as he wanted to, as much as the rational part of his mind begged him, because something had to go wrong, it always did.

  He couldn’t take it, it had been too long, but he felt hot and _warm and wet and_ \--

  Sans had cum in his sleep, a fact he had only known because he had woken up from the come-down, panting and gasping, his boxers bunched under his groin. That was new. Weird, and new. He pulled the covers back over himself, fixed his clothing, and shot a glance to the door, which was ajar. He prayed Papyrus hadn’t heard him, as the mortification would have been too much. He furrowed his brow.

  He... Did not like it. In the slightest. He would have preferred to have all of his faculties, rather than act in his sleep. If he were to do anything, he would rather it be through a conscious choice. He wasn’t a horny teenager.

  Gaster had his back to the wall outside Sans’ room, suckling at his fingers, tasting salt and sweat and musk. This was unbearable, which made it so much better. He couldn’t help himself, like a fly gorging on a corpse. He held deathly still, which was not a difficult task, as the majority of his ‘involuntary’ actions were done to keep others at ease; breathing, blinking and swallowing his saliva.

 

* * *

 

  Gaster slept, and dreamed, and woke, and found himself face-down in his own room, a thin trail of saliva dripping from his mouth, his arms pointed towards the door, as if dragging himself. He peeled himself from the floor before making his way back to the bed.

  Sleeping was such an odd thing.


	7. Salt

 

  Papyrus was left hollowly walking, sickening warmth sliding up and down his body, drifting through that hideous, verdant field. His body had slid and crumbled underneath himself like chalk as he moved, and shifted back to where it once was, and he drifted through like a timeless, ancient thing that for all intents and purposes should not be. And that was correct. He was an abomination, a being composed entirely of cancer cells, or at least, that was how he felt. All he could do was shamble and loop, because he had confronted Gaster before and made things worse.

  He was an idiot. He was a loud, impulsive idiot, that would only rant and rave and shout to make himself feel better, brash, acting without thinking in false confidence. He had only confronted Gaster to ease his conscience, of course he had. He loved Sans dearly, his only brother, but the pull of confrontation was too strong, he had gotten swept up in his brief ‘victory’.

  ‘He doesn’t need to be interested. He just needs to be compliant.’

  Compliant, the fucker.

  And Papyrus had dared to challenge that bastard, had dared to call him out on his nature, had dared to question the thing that could not feel guilt. And Gaster had somehow gotten worse in spite, quietly, distantly watching, planning, calculating, observing and yet participating with ease. All at once, the warmth grew to a heat, then a burning, and with a wet gasp it was all over. Papyrus looked to his hand. It felt sticky.

  The worst part was that he couldn’t even find the energy to be appalled anymore. It was just a fact of his life. A nice thing he would do occasionally that made him huff, squeal and relax, taking all tension with it, was ruined. Spoiled. Even if he were to suddenly reappear with no protest, piloting his body once again, he would never be the same. Never. Any romantic notions would be burdened with a hideous shame not of his making. He would not be able to look at himself in the mirror ever again. Could not hold Sans as his brother, not without Gaster wriggling to the forefront of his mind like a tongue in his socket.

  He stopped.

  Was it even worth going back, then?

  He slapped himself across the face, hard, the nauseating stickiness not shifting. It trickled thickly between his fingers in an invisible, taunting slime.

  Of course it was. Sans needed him.

  He went to take another step. He was twelve feet to the left of the stone circumference he had seen dozens of times, and from that he knew he was thirty feet from the apex of the hill, before it would dip down and loop once again. His foot hovered in the air, and he burrowed into his scarf. He had a decision to make.

  If Gaster got his way, if Sans warped and warped under the pressure exerted on him, the heat, and slid into Gaster’s mold like hot metal, until one day it... Happened. Just happened, a sicking abomination of an act that Sans would not like, would hate, would make him want to die, something he would put up with in a desperate attempt to keep the shambling corpse of his ‘brother’ upright and speaking and cheerful... Could he intervene in the middle? Was he capable of holding back his tremorous disgust long enough to pull away, to tell Sans to run, to run as fast as his bones could carry him, to run until they gave and cracked and snapped like uncooked pasta? Or was it simply too much to bare?

  To his horror, he did not know. He calmed his breathing, his face static in his despair before coming to a realization.

  If the time came, and Papyrus had somehow not exuded enough control in the lead up...

  And in some sick twist of fate the opportunity came about when Gaster was in the middle of _raping_ Sans, his brother, the man that had raised him, his brother, his only friend for years, who he had given up everything for, his dear, sweet brother... Then he would do it. He would intervene. No matter the trauma. He couldn’t block it out if he concentrated on moving his real body away, he couldn’t, it required utmost concentration. Besides.

  He would feel it anyway.

  Papyrus tasted salt.

 

* * *

 

  
  Gaster, as he generally did, had a plan.

  Gaster was going to get Sans plastered, but not in the way he would with cheap harlots in bars, no. In a subtler way, with an intoxication that penetrated deeper than simply drunkenness.

  Gaster was going to bring alcohol into the house, and just leave it there.

  It couldn’t have been so conspicuous as to be Sans’ favorite (though it wasn’t the cheap beer he would get at Grillby’s like he had said, his real soft spot was for bloody marys) because he had only mentioned it once and Papyrus would never dare to bring it into the house in the fear Sans would cave and drink it. No, no, that would have been far too obvious.

  Papyrus, occasionally, when he was at Undyne’s, would drink a rum and coke, would savor it, would enjoy the pleasant fuzzing of his mind. It always had a little lemon slice, because he liked to be fancy. Just the one. Always just the one. Never two, no matter how much Undyne encouraged him to do shots or anything like that. Always one. Never on the nights he would return home. Undyne usually whipped out the booze during their bi-monthly games of truth or dare, and so he would indulge himself.

  And so Gaster had purchased a bottle of rum, a nice one, because he knew Papyrus would have treated himself, and a bottle of cola to stash in the back of the fridge. It was tucked away just so, behind the leftovers, and it became an elaborate game of poker, bluffs in bluffs in bluffs. Papyrus did not drink soda, those instances being the exception. Sans would know that, Papyrus had mentioned it off-handedly one day and Sans had quirked his brow in surprise, having assumed his brother would be teetotal, fitting with the squeaky-clean image he had presented. Not that he minded. And even though Gaster had binged on that one night the image still stood, as to Sans it was a one-off.

  Sans wouldn't drink from it if it was pristine, unopened, fearing it would be a gift stored away for someone else. When it was opened, however, well, that was a different ball game entirely. It belonged to the house, then.

  And so came the easy part. Gaster made himself a rum and coke, measured it to the centiliter, with ice and the lemon, and drank it. It was nice. It burned, but pleasantly. He could see why Papyrus liked them.

  He sipped the rest of his drink, mulling it like he did his thoughts, letting it swish to and fro in his jaw.

  Sans would know there would be rum in the house, when the opened soda was in the fridge. But it was inconspicuous enough that Gaster could not be blamed for any ‘incidents’ that would occur.

  Rum, he knew, was very strong, especially to someone that had quit drinking, who would operate under the assumption that he would be able to handle the amount he used to. Sans would be drunk beyond all belief, far more than he would intend to. Gaster would do as he wished, Sans would come to, and Gaster would need to frame his actions in a specific light.

  ‘I-I TRIED TO FIGHT YOU OFF, BUT I DIDN’T WANT TO HURT YOU!’

  He watched the light, how it refracted through the ice cubes, how they clinked together.

  ‘THEN YOU STARTED DOING THINGS, A-AND I, AND I--’

  He had ‘hidden’ the bottle of rum in the cupboard, in a place Sans couldn’t reach, the one to the left of the kitchen sink. The one Sans would glance at when he did the dishes, as his mind wandered from place to place with no train of thought. He would only be able to make out the label from his vantage point. That was the key. Gaster was simply an innocent young man who enjoyed the occasional drink, as was his right, and his goods had been stolen by his out-of-control brother.

  ‘THEY FELT GOOD, SANS.’

  All it would take was a little push, another bad day.

  ‘YOU SHOULD DO THEM AGAIN.’

  One good, hard, fuck, one Gaster would channel all of his anger into. He wasn’t sure who he was angry at, merely that he was.

  ‘YOU WERE LUCKY I ENJOYED IT.’

  Scuffs and scrapes and bites, like a worm writhing and growing fat over a flaccid corpse.

  ‘YOU OWE ME. YOU OWE ME EVERYTHING.’

  Sans would break from the inside entirely, the only thing keeping his sanity from drifting off would be his dear, sweet brother.

  ‘DO IT AGAIN.’

  Panting and gasping and retching.

  ‘STOP CRYING.’

  Moaning and thrusting and delighted, nasal squealing. Warping Sans' feelings.

  ‘I LOVE YOU, BROTHER.’

  Gaster finished his drink, wiping at the corners of his mouth with a sigh.

  A habit is a habit because it is difficult to truly break. Otherwise it would be a one-off, and those would not do.

 

* * *

 

  
  Sans dreamed that night. Vividly. Hatefully. He did not go to work the next morning, and Gaster had cancelled his duties to ‘dote’ on Sans, at least for that morning.

  Gaster dreamed too, afterwards. He woke up, arm cramping, fingers scraping at the door to his bedroom, lolling up and down. He had made quite the trek in his sleep. The sun blared in, the heat stinging them both. 

  “I’M SORRY YOU’VE BEEN HAVING A HARD TIME. DO YOU WANT TO TALK ABOUT IT?”

  “what makes you say that, man?”

  Sans looked like death. He was slumped in the kitchen chair, having not bothered to change out of his pyjamas. He sat oddly. He had his palms resting to his face, fingers hooked into his sockets as if he would tear his skull to shreds.

  “YOU DON’T LOOK WELL.”

  “i’m fine, man. seriously. go do your thing, paps.”

  “I WON’T LEAVE YOU WHEN YOU’RE LIKE THIS!”

  Sans sunk into his chair further, leaning away imperceptibly when Gaster rested his hand on his shoulder.

  “i’m always like this.”

  “I KNOW.”

  Gaster frowned as if in thought, before an ‘idea’ suddenly struck him, as if he hadn’t spent hours planning. “LET ME MAKE YOU SOMETHING TO EAT!”

  Sans sighed. “paps, that’s really not necessary--”

  “OH, NONSENSE! A GOOD MEAL WILL HELP YOU FEEL BETTER, I SWEAR! NOT JUST ANY MEAL, A MEAL MADE BY ME! ON ONE CONDITION.”

  “what?”

  “YOU,” Gaster poked, his amusement almost seeping through, “WILL DO THE DISHES.”

  “... fine. fine, sure, that’s pretty fair.”

  “I’M GLAD TO HEAR IT! HOW ABOUT PANCAKES? I’LL NEED TO MAKE SOMETHING EASY, I LEAVE AFTER BREAKFAST!”

 

* * *

 

  Gaster came back later that day.

  Sans reeked of alcohol, and his eyelids hung unevenly. He was slumped, asleep in the living room. He did not dream.

  Gaster gently pried the bottle from his hands, with warmth and great tenderness, took a huge swig, then placed it back, wrapping Sans’ unconscious, stubby digits around it.

  He would shower first. He had class.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Things get movin' along, papyrus finally says the word i've been dancing around this whole fic, and sans slips into some bad habits.


	8. Shake

 

  The shower was scalding, cleansing, wonderful. Gaster had to duck to wash properly, to really clean, but he did not mind. He spotted the awful shower gel Sans used, that he would pick up for dirt cheap and never wash off properly, leaving him smelling musky, soapy, all day. Gaster wanted to jerk-off with it, but he needed to hold off, and so he simply settled for taking a long, slow inhale. These next few minutes with Sans would be the most crucial, that he knew, and so he took the break he deserved. It can get tiring, pulling on so many threads, wearing so many masks. It was nice to be himself, if only briefly, and even then in someone else’s body. With a long, satisfied sigh, he turned off the faucet, the water dripping in between his bones and tickling him delightfully, steam settling into condensation in his sockets. He set about drying off.

  It would be a fact, not a brag, not a fit of self-aggrandization, to say that Gaster was going to be the best lay of Sans’ life. Sans was, in all respects, extremely lucky. Gaster hoped he hadn’t drooled on the carpet.

 

* * *

 

  Luckily, Sans was still slumped in the living room, the bottle slipped from his hand, filling the air with sterile pungency. The carpet was soaked with rum, the dregs of it still sitting darkly in the overturned bottle. Gaster padded over, the carpet fibres itching his feet. He did not usually go barefoot. He felt it best to be especially tactile, that day. He shook Sans’ shoulder, gently, softly, to maintain his illusions.

  “SANS? SANS, ARE YOU AWAKE?”

  Sans lolled his head, completely unaware of where he was, of what was happening, reacting only to sound. There were no lights in his eyes, only flickers of movement, impetus that was sliced and gouged and squashed to nothing. A few more tries, just to be sure, just to be safe.

  “SANS? YOU’RE DRUNK.”

  Nothing.

  “AREN’T YOU GOING TO GET UP? FOR YOUR BROTHER? FOR PAPYRUS? FOR YOUR SWEET, BABY BROTHER?”

  Gaster dipped forward, inhaling his stale breath.

  “I THOUGHT AS MUCH.” He picked up the bottle, examining the label idly. “EIGHTY PROOF. STRAIGHT FROM THE BOTTLE. FOR SUCH A SMART MAN, YOU HAVE AN AWFUL HABIT OF MAKING BAD DECISIONS.”

  His hand ghosted to Sans’ pelvis and he pressed in, gently, watching for any reaction, pushing in further when he found none, until he knew it would hurt.

  “GOD,” he breathed, wistfully, so used to keeping up Papyrus’ voice that is felt natural. “I WISH YOU HAD A CUNT.”

  He had to be exceptionally careful in how he proceeded, in the evidence he left behind, because there _needed_ to be evidence. That could not be disputed. But it needed to be a certain _kind_ of evidence, left in a certain kind of way. He pondered. Sans was far too drunk to perform anything on Gaster, and if Sans woke up sore then his cover would be blown immediately. Gently, Gaster undid his pants, and pulled Sans’ down. Full sex wasn’t an option, not right there, not at that point. Luckily, Gaster was inventive. He was a scientist.

  He brought his face down to Sans’, thumbing absently at his sharp teeth, scraping off a trail of drool and sucking on it. With a tug and a gasp, he began.

 

* * *

 

  Sans came to, blearily, in the living room, and he was not sure what stung worse, his own self loathing or the bile that sat in his mouth. Slowly, he lifted his arm. It swayed. Yep, still drunk. He was not sure how he felt about that. His thoughts trickled back in, slowly but surely. Papyrus... Was probably home? And would be furious, deservedly so. God, how that thought burrowed in his chest like a parasite, how it gorged and grew fat. He opened his eyes to stare at the ceiling, his limbs still entirely slack. His head hurt. Every movement felt like he were swimming through a bog. His sweatpants were bunched under him, and he felt the cool air--

  Oh no. Oh God no. In the living room? Was he a barbarian, was he so fundamentally lacking in personhood that he would subject his brother to that awkward sight? Slowly, he reached down, pulling them up. They were sodden. He winced, as he knew for a fact it wasn’t sweat. He groaned, tears forming in his eyes from the embarrassment, at the thought of his brother seeing him like this, like an animal. He heard a sniffle, and in his haze he had registered it as his own.

  “... S-SANS?” 

  Sans sat up, feeling an awful pooling in his skull, that dragged his body downwards, forcing him to topple as he desperately tried to stay upright, hand outstretched. “p-papyrus...? fuckin’...” He slurred, and he over-enunciated to compensate. “sorry, don’t... don’t look, man, i ain’t in a state to... to, uh... shit, i-i don’t, i dunno.” He dragged his gaze up to meet Gaster’s, and his eyes were locked to his body. His shirt was torn, as if by the maw of a large animal, and his jeans were split entirely at the front. Gaster did his best to protect his modesty, as Papyrus would have done.

  “... what... what happened, papyrus? did you, did you get, fuckin’...” He clicked his fingers, panic coursing through him as he searched for a word. “... mauled? did you get attacked?”

  Gaster was weeping. It was one of those lone, dignified tears Papyrus seemed to fawn over. He was sat on the couch.

  “WHY DID YOU DO IT, SANS?”

  Sans brought his arm down, slowly dragging himself to rigidity, balancing on it as he tried to stand. “i’m sorry for drinkin’, but, you... priorities, man... what happened?”

  Gaster slowly moved his hand from his groin to prove his point, and Sans slowly began putting the pieces together.

  “this ain’t funny, pap.”

  Gaster sniffled. “W-WHY DID IT HAVE TO B-BE ME? I KEPT TELLING YOU TO STOP.”

  Sans dropped to his knees once again in disbelief, as the full horror sunk in, like ice chips being slid tenderly into his bones. He couldn’t have. He couldn’t have.

  “I-I J-J-J--”

  Gaster bawled, feigning the death of innocence, of gentle, sweet ignorance, now keenly aware of the horrors people could inflict on one another. Apparently. He had seen it all before, but he had to play nice for his brother, his lover.

  “Y-YOU SUMMONED THIS B-BIG SKULL, O-ONE I’VE NEVER SEEN BEFORE, AND YOU--”

  Sans retched. There was no way Papyrus could have known about his blaster unless he had displayed it.

  “I-I DON’T T-THINK Y-YOU KNEW WHO I WAS, WHAT YOU WERE DOING--”

  Those grey, faceless figures he would keen into, gasp and thrust, ran in his mind, his thoughts, trickling like acid in his eyes. Oh God, his brother. God almighty, _what had he done?_

  “papyrus, oh god, papyrus, i-i, i, i don’t--”

  “I FORGIVE YOU--”

  “you shouldn’t! fuck, you shouldn’t, i’m-- oh god, oh god, no...”

  Gaster threw himself forward to ‘comfort’ Sans, and Sans wrenched himself back as best he could, wishing with all his might that he were dead.

  “please, just, get the fuck away from me, you, i, oh god, i’m scum, i’m scum, i--”

  Gaster leaned forward, his plan in motion, his strings, pulled, his bones shaky from the orgasm.

  “W-WELL, SEE, THE THING I-IS, I WAS TOO D-DRUNK TO REMEMBER MY FIRST TIME, TO ENJOY IT...” He lied. “A-AND SOME OF THE THINGS YOU WERE DOING FELT V-VERY NICE. YOU’RE CLEARLY EXPERIENCED... AND I THINK IT WOULD BE NICE IF YOU DID THEM AGAIN!”

  Sans cried, occasionally. He was alive, after all, and he had his bad days no matter how much he tried to bury them under mirth and wit. Occasionally, he sobbed.

  Today was a learning experience for Gaster, because he did not know that Sans could wail.

 

* * *

 

  It had been one hour, one full hour, just enough for Sans to sober up a little, but not enough to be compos mentis, and they were both shirtless in the living room. Gaster was leaning forward, ravenous. Sans was leaning back, hoping his body would collapse in on himself, a fitting punishment for a truly evil creature.

  “p-papyrus, i-i don’t--”

  “IT’S FINE,” Gaster soothed.

  “i don’t want to do this. i can’t believe i need to say this. i don’t ever, ever want to do this, paps.”

  “I KNOW,” he breathed. “BUT YOU WILL. I’M A FAST LEARNER. I’LL KNOW WHAT YOU LIKE. YOU MADE ME FEEL GOOD. I’VE NEVER FELT LIKE THAT WITH ANYONE ELSE, AND IT NEVER FELT LIKE THAT WHEN I DID IT.”

  Gaster slowly, tenderly, ran his tongue up Sans’ neck, in the way he had wanted to weeks ago, to settle on the vertebrae, lapping at the gap, and Sans let out a creak that made him want to die, painfully so, his body reacting in ways he did not want it to. Gaster laughed into the bone. He tasted like salt; sweat and musk and fear.

  “I’M GOING TO MAKE YOU FEEL SO GOOD, BROTHER. TO THANK YOU. PLEASE DON’T WORRY.”

  It was then Sans realized what was truly happening, it finally hitting him through the haze.  

  “no. no, no, no--”

  “SHH, SHH,” Gaster soothed, voice husky. “SHH.”

  Sans felt a part of himself die, as he lay on that couch, slack like a tooth loose from a jaw, lolling to and fro under Gaster’s movements. He had the mostly-empty bottle of rum clutched like a comfort blanket, the dregs of it being his only solace in the world. He could only find the strength to mumble out sentences, having totally given up, given in, on the precipice of true madness. This couldn’t be happening. It simply couldn’t. He was dreaming. This was it. He was dreaming again.  
  
  But on the off-chance he wasn’t.

  “now i thought i did a pretty good job of raisin’ you...” He recoiled when Gaster groped at his spine, completely ignoring him, tears slipping down his frozen face. “well, no, that’s bullshit, but i did my best. i’d always go without to give you food, i’d steal clothes outta shops for you, i’d...”

  He choked on his words. He was looking down on himself from above, watching a living corpse piloted by his husk of a soul act in response to something abominable.

  “... i’d do anything to keep you happy, y’know? when times were tough, you were always there. you were my pappy. then you became my papyrus, and i was so proud, man. i was so fuckin’ proud. you had it all goin’ for you. you were big, you were strong, you were smart in your own way. and i don’t meant that in a backhanded way, i’ve never met anybody else that thinks like you.” Sans took a swig, feeling it burn and soil his throat, and it forced out salty tears. “and you were so kind. that was what i was proudest of. you turned out so. fuckin’. kind. at least, that’s what i always thought. and i don’t know what happened, paps. something is wrong with you. somethin’ is very, very wrong with you. and i have no idea how to fix it. no idea. i don’t know where i went wrong! with everything else i’ve done, i can go ‘hey sans, that was dumb, don’t do that’. but with this, i don’t...”

  Gaster moaned, grinding against Sans, no longer caring, the anticipation making it so much better.

  Sans’ breathing sped up, accelerating and accelerating until he was hyperventilating, wheezing, every part of him screeching in protest, every part of him weighed down is crushing disbelief.

  “c’mon man, c’mon, i raised you, i gave you baths when you were a babybones, i fed you when you were little, c’mon, don’t do this, please--”

  Gaster remained silent, focusing on his arousal, how he felt, God almighty how he felt.

  “fine! fuck, whatever, i didn’t raise you, i dragged you up, fine! is that what you wanted to hear? is that why you’re doin’ this, to get me to spill my guts? fine, i’m sans the skeleton and i’m shit, alright? everythin’ i touch turns to pus, to fetid, rancid garbage. are you happy now, papyrus? are you fuckin’ happy?”

  Gaster dipped down to kiss him, to finally break his spirit, and Sans was still, dead.

  “i-i love you, you’re my brother, don’t--”

  Gaster gasped, pressing himself into Sans with no preparation, murmuring, their faces pressed together. “SAY IT AGAIN.”

  “you’re my brother--”

  “NOT THAT.”

  “... i... i love you?”

  “AGAIN.”

  “i love you,” he wept.

  The pressure was becoming deliciously unbearable. “GOD, AGAIN, _AGAIN!_ ”

  “i... i love...” Sans’ eyes clamped shut, every one of his perfect ribs heaving with disgust. “what the fuck happened, man? what’s gotten into you? this...”

  He motioned dully to Gaster who was thrusting away, enraptured, as if he were pointing out an interesting painting in his periphery.

  Gaster slid a hand up Sans’ thigh, to rest at the dent in his hipbones as they connected to his pelvis, thumbing it in the way Gaster knew he liked, bone clacking against bone.

  Sans froze under the contact, going completely rigid, every bone clenched as he willed himself to move, to leave, to get out, to blast him to pieces, but he couldn’t, he couldn’t, it was Pappy, his sick brother, it was _Pappy_.

  Suddenly, Gaster convulsed, shuddering, shaking, unnatural twitches as his vision rolled away.

  It felt like tar was sliding down his throat, speech became an impossibility in those moments. Gaster heard Papyrus’ voice.

  “SA... SA... N... S...”

  He watched with crushing, sudden horror as his body was wrenched from him, as he clung on desperately, as his physicality shifted like grit, tumbling away from him.

  “N-NOT... NOT ME... RUN...”

  That bastard, that conniving bastard, how dare he! This was no longer his body to take, that bastard, that bastard!

  “p-papyrus? papyrus, what the fuck are you--”

  With a gasp, Gaster was back, hunched over, in, Sans.

  He could not think of a way, of a single way, to frame this to his advantage. He was left blustering, feeling foreign in his body.

  Sans, stoic, strong Sans, was crying, the thick tears rolling down his face not affecting his cadence, leaving him looking like an exquisite sculpture. “you... you ain’t papyrus are ya?” He laughed humorlessly, his face not moving, his entire body heaving with despair, watching as everything he loved was taken from him. “you wanna know the worst part?”

  Gaster saw a faint blue light directly to his left, that grew and grew and grew until it was a huge, screeching beam, feet away.

  This wasn't Papyrus.

  He couldn't cope.

  “ya look so much like him,” he choked, defeated. “that i can’t bring myself to kill you. good luck, _freak_.”

  Before Gaster could react, could pin him down, Sans wrenched himself away with a kick to the groin, tossing himself backwards clumsily. His head hit the beam, the inertia carrying a portion of his body with it.

  He died instantly.

  His head was absent, having been incinerated. His corpse toppled, twitching, his body reacting to the last dregs of input, of movement, fingers pulsing and convulsing before all at once they stopped, and began to crumble. The beam died with it, the phantom skull that spewed it having vanished like clumps of sand in the wind.

  Gaster looked at his dust, cold pain crackling in his bones. He looked to the air, speaking to Papyrus, bitter and unsatisfied. That _idiot,_ that fucking  _idiot!_  Always acting on impulse, never thinking his actions through.

  “It would have been over quickly. I had nearly cum. He would have lived with me. _You_ just killed him,” he spat.

 

* * *

 

  Papyrus did not break, because a broken thing can be pieced back together. Papyrus  _fractured_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> gg papyrus


	9. Dust

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> once again, i encourage you to read the main fic if you haven't done so, as this chapter references it heavily!

  That fucker, that fucker, _that fucker_! How dare he do that, how dare he, trying his best to intervene, it was sickening. Gaster brought his shuddering hands to his bones, feeling his face, his arms, his ribs, finding no resistance in his movements. What the hell was that? What had just _happened?_

  Gaster threw himself back, gasping, the events finally hitting him. He shakily, slowly, moved forward, to peep over the couch, nursing the pain in his groin. He looked to the pile of dust, to Sans, the screech of lasers ringing in his mind, back and forth. This was infuriating. All he could do was stare, aghast. If Gaster was operating on a scale, and zero represented a point where Sans was content and happy, and ten, the point where he would kill himself, then Gaster wanted to push him to, at most, a nine-point-nine. Gaster would do the deed, enjoy it, as he had been doing, and then talk him back down, as he _would be able to do it_. That fact was indisputable. He had intimate knowledge of Sans’ psyche, which parts to poke and prod at and shock like a heart on a slab, which made Papyrus’ attempt to help all that much more infuriating. Sans wouldn’t move to save himself because he could not be bothered. He would not even try. And for Papyrus to think that were the case was the height of ignorance, of blustering, foolish idealism. Sans was a smart man. For Papyrus to only be able to wrench control for a moment implied he was not in control all of the time. If he were not in control all of the time, as Sans had worked out in those few seconds, would have meant that Sans had been living with someone else. Papyrus had, unintentionally, in desperation, took the dial Gaster had been carefully twisting over the course of months and torn the knob off at its maximum point.

  Sans was dead. He didn’t want that to be the case, but it was. He needed to think of a plan.

  Gaster calmly sat down on the couch, dusted off his knees, then popped his knuckles to limber them up. Papyrus, if he were to come home and find Sans dead, would probably be distraught, all panic and gasps, loose tears, limbs tangled as he tried to desperately hold Sans’ dust, as if he could pick up every clump and piece him back together. Gaster stood up with measured poise, face static, knelt down, and dunked his hands into the mound, shards of bone scraping at his hands. For extra believably, he clutched his arms around himself, frozen and cold like stone, rubbing them to and fro to simulate rocking in trauma, coating his shirt in fine layer of dust. He walked to the mirror in the bathroom, having to duck awkwardly to compensate for his height. Yes, that would do. All he needed were some tears to seal the deal. With shaking hands, already wincing preemptively, Gaster brought his long digits to the outer rim of his eye socket and pinched, feeling stinging pain, tears slipping down his cheeks. He looked again. There we go. That was the ‘my brother committed suicide’ look.  
  
  There was a clump of dust stuck to the sweat of his hands, and Gaster sucked on it as if it were mother’s milk. Sans was inside him, now. He had technically done what he had set out to do, if he were to frame it like that. Sans was inside him. And would be. Forever. Dear, sweet, smart Sans. Inside of him. And it appeared that would have to suffice.

  He was going to have some choice words with Papyrus, when he showed up, as he undoubtedly would. Some very specific words indeed. Gaster took his mobile from his pocket, having fixed his pants, his shaking hands confusing him. He knew why they were shaking, abstractly; he was shocked. And yet, to see it happen unsettled him.

  To make it truly believable, to convey that he was truly distraught, he began rambling seconds before Undyne could have possibly picked up, high on ‘hysteria’.

  “--OH GOD, UNDYNE, COME QUICKLY, SANS IS, I, SANS, H-HE’S DEAD, I THINK HE _K--KILL_ \-- I-- OH GOD, OH GOD--”

  He glanced around the room, looking for Papyrus, eyes locked to Sans’ dust, to his blue hoodie, to his stained sweatpants.

  Oh no. She couldn't be allowed to see that.

  Gaster darted up, marching towards Sans’ room, and Undyne picked up the phone.

  “Yo Paps! What’s up--”

  “SANS IS DEAD.”

  Undyne went silent, as silent as the room around him. To fill it, he heaved and wept.

  “Papyrus,” she said softly, restraining her own fear with iron willpower, her tone not suiting her in the slightest, “I’m fifteen minutes away. I'll come help you. Can you hold on until then?”

  “-- I F-FOUND HIM LIKE THIS, AND I, I, OH GOD, _SANS!_ I ALWAYS KNEW HE HAD SOME ISSUES, BUT HE NEVER SAID ANYTHING, NEVER! HE ALWAYS SEEMED SO HAPPY, WHY WOULDN’T HE TALK TO ME? I JUST DON’T UNDERSTAND! I-I DON’T--GOD, IF ONLY I COULD HAVE _HELPED_ HIM--!”

  “Hang on tight. I’ll be there soon.”

  _Holy shit, she was buying it._

  Gaster was coldly rooting around in Sans’ wardrobe, sodden garment hooked over one hand, phone pressed to his face with the bulk of his shoulder like he was ordering take-out. Oh, those would do. Grey, not his usual color, but he had worn them before.

  “P-PLEASE, UNDYNE, PLEASE, PLEASE COME QUICKLY!”

  She sounded close to tears. The Captain of the Guard, crying. God. “I will man, I will. Sit tight. Don’t so anything stupid, alright? Papyrus, fuck, I’m--”

  He heard her take a breath. What was she upset for? She was hardly Sans’ biggest fan.

  “Promise me. That you won’t do anything stupid.”

  He could tell she was thinking of Alphys. He didn’t need to read her mind to work that one out.

  “I-I PROMISE, I P-PROMISE, OH SANS, SANS, HE--”

  “Hold on, Papyrus. I’m comin’.”

  She hung up, and Gaster sighed in exasperation. He trotted to his room, opened his drawers, and crammed Sans’ wet sweatpants to the bottom for future use, before making his way back to the living room. He aimed, and threw.

  Right in the center of the pile. Ten points.

  The good thing about not feeling love, is that attachment is fleeting, if strong. There’s a reason for it; lust, wealth, but when it’s permanently gone, it’s gone. At least nobody else could have him, now. His last thoughts were of Gaster, even if under false pretenses. His last breath. The last fluid that gargled in his throat. All for Gaster. He, once again, looked to the pile, a little distant. Angry, of course.

  There he was. Weeping. Hunched. Naked.

  Gaster was too sickened to even grace Papyrus with the slightest hint of attention, taking the time to choose his words carefully in the lead up to the lecture he was about to unleash. Papyrus was on the floor, knees tucked under him, head braced flatly to the ground, hands uselessly plunged in the dust. They did not move its mass. It looked like he were praying, as if he were able to claw Sans back. Oh God, he better not cry, today was bad enough as it is. You know what, no, he deserved _some_ acknowledgement.

  Gaster roared forward, swinging his leg back and kicking Papyrus from underneath, shattering three of his ribs with the force of it, God, how dare he, _how dare he!_ Papyrus jumped at the impact, seething pain spewing from his bones, but he didn’t move, settling back into his position, weakly thumbing at Sans’ dust. Instantaneously, a thick, black slime seeped from his bones, his spine, settling into his ribs, taking shape. It was as if he had never been injured. Abomination. He was an abomination. Murderer. Abomination.

  “ _All you had to do!_ ”

  Another wicked kick, this time dislodging his bare femur from his hip, the pain forcing him to gasp and grit his teeth before he felt his leg be pulled back to his body. The dust was coarse, fine shards of bone that he could just make out but not identify. Sans. This was Sans.

  Gaster had done something terrible and Papyrus had felt every spasm.

  He didn’t try to piece him back together, his spirit was so broken that not even the delusion of being able to fix Sans could comfort him. He just pawed, and clung, and slowly, gently wept, no longer caring.

  “SANS...”

  Good God, it smelled like him. It smelled like his scarf used to; it smelled like those nights they would spend huddled up, telling stories as cold, hungry children, those days talking and dreaming of their futures with only faint spats of pessimism to bring them down. It was every home-cooked, under-seasoned meal that had ever been made for Papyrus, it was words of comfort when he would cry at night, it smelled like his _scarf_.

  “Was stay _out of it!_ ”

  Papyrus choked as the vertebrae of his upper spine snapped like pulled twine under the impact, the crunch rendering his skull useless and floppy, face bent upwards in an unnatural angle that would have killed him if he were still a person. He felt something warm and wet on his back, like tendons stretching and bursting, and he felt his head rise slowly to the place where it once was.

  Papyrus closed his eyes, accepting it, if it meant he could be next to Sans before his ashes were swept into an urn to be scattered, as was customary. This was the second time this had happened, that an innocent person had died due to his hubris. Was he that awful? When he would watch the Guard outside his window as a child, stomping his feet in time and pretending that they would want to be his friends, was this what it all led up to? He had not seen this life for himself. He wanted to move out, when he was a Guard, to give Sans his own space. Nearby, of course. Neighbors. He wanted to make a lot of money, to live comfortably, to repay Sans for all the years of sacrifice. He had wanted the Humans to invade out of principal, so he could turn around and show them all that Monsters weren’t to be feared. He wanted to listen to CD’s and dance around the kitchen. He wanted to settle down, when he was a little older. A fancy wedding, with a nice cake, and Sans would argue with him jokingly about the cost. Wife. Husband. Either. Kids, two, ideally, a boy and a girl. A close family, a tight-knit one, who would want for nothing. He wanted to drown in warm company, and live a long, happy life. Sans would be a good uncle. He was great with kids. Undyne would be happy for him. And then, when he was spent, he would lay his sallowed bones down for the last time and die with dignity, surrounded by loved ones, who would not mourn him, but celebrate his life.

  God almighty, he would have taken anything but this. He did not just see Sans die. He had seen the death of everything he had ever envisioned, wanted, hoped for.

  He had only wanted to help, each and every time, he had only wanted to help and now Sans was dead. Gaster had broken his pelvis. That probably meant something. He didn’t care. It hurt.

  “All I will have--”

  Left arm, broken. Agony. Left arm, repaired. Agony.

  “-- _Are my dreams, you **fuck!**_ ”

  Papyrus’ eyes sprung open, and Gaster attributed it to a particularly gruesome spasm of pain. He didn’t know. _He hadn’t figured it out._

  His eyes lidded, the excitement leaving him. What was the point, what was even the point?

  His left arm was broken from the elbow downwards with an almighty kick, and he could feel Gaster’s growing exhaustion in his own body. As little as twenty-five pounds to break a bone, if delivered quickly enough, and by God, it was. He flexed it, strangled impulses causing it to twitch before it knitted itself back together in front of him. It was sinister and beautiful, like the great, looming legs of a spider pulling its prey towards itself.

  “Because!”

  His spine frayed at the ends, like guts in water.

  “ _You!_ ”

  And once again, it was pristine.

  “ _Killed him! Do you know how much time you’ve wasted! Do you know what you have taken from **me?**_ ”

  Papyrus snapped, lunging upwards to his full height and clutching Gaster by the neck, what was once his neck, and gripping until his hand hurt, just on the precipice of killing him. He knew he couldn’t. It was not that he did not want to. Gaster looked back, his rant having been cut off. He was corporeal. He could push Papyrus off easily, but he didn’t, and that made Papyrus that much angrier.

  Papyrus loomed over him, somehow tightening his grip on Gaster’s vertebrae, as if he could somehow snap his neck with one swift crack. He tried. He couldn’t. His wrists felt limp, weak, useless.

  Gaster not say anything, merely observed. He glanced to his neck with dismissive admiration.

  Papyrus did not say anything. He forced the angle of his grip downwards, forcing Gaster to crane his head up. Papyrus’ expression remained locked, with fat, shuddering tears tumbling onto the floor. Neither of them were emoting. They had nobody to emote for.

  “ _RAPIST._ ”

  “ _Murderer._ ”

  Gaster’s voice was even, flat, with no dips or lilts to give it true warmth. It was as if he had never been angry in the first place, there was no growl as a hold-over from his rant. Papyrus was speaking for the sake of speaking, now. He didn’t know what he was saying, merely that he was saying it.

  “WHAT WAS YOUR PLAN?”

  “You know full well what my plan was. You know full well that it would have worked. Tell me, would you rather he be alive with me, finding great satisfaction in my company? Or dead.”

  Papyrus snarled the answer, a thick, bubbling rasp that spewed from his throat like pus from a wound. “DEAD.”

  “Then you are very selfish. But I think we both know that’s true, anyway.”

  “SELFISH, _SELFISH_ , HOW DARE--”

  “Every single thing you have done, despite being entrenched in the desire to help, has made things far worse for yourself, for everyone. You remember walking into Sans’ workshop, picking up the shrapnel, slipping me into you, don’t you? Not thinking for a moment to consider the consequences. Sans got worse then, didn’t he? ‘Taking turns’, you wanted Sans to be _sweet_ and _grateful_ and _happy_ because who wouldn’t be in the face of a hero? And then you martyred yourself in that field for him, thinking that you were stowing away some cosmic, karmic deed to be repaid to you in full in the future, but a good deed done for selfish reasons is still selfish inherently, isn’t it?”

  Papyrus was limp, his long arms being the only exception. “WHAT WAS EVEN THE POINT IN LETTING ME CHOOSE, THEN? WHAT WAS THE POINT?”

  “Because I wanted to--”

  Papyrus thrashed his wrists, forcing Gaster’s head to loll. “SEE WHAT WOULD HAPPEN, YES, SEE WHAT WOULD HAPPEN, THAT’S ALWAYS THE CASE WITH YOU, ISN’T IT, _SEE WHAT WOULD HAPPEN?_ ”

  “Don’t be upset,” Gaster responded, voice even, foam rising in the corners of his mouth. “because you do not think things through. Because you think of only the immediate benefits, rather than the long term consequences of your actions. Those knights in your stories, hmm, who you would wish you were on your worst nights, when you just wanted the whole world to stop, what do you think happens to them after their happy endings? Nothing. The book ends. Their story is over. You do not see what happens because they are not real. They have saved the princess and slain the dragon, but no care is given to their circumstances afterwards. The dragon they killed; perhaps it had a family that would seek revenge? Perhaps the princess marries the knight not out of love, but out of duty, to pacify the ‘brave hero’. The knight, what happens when he gets old, when he dies, when he rots away to nothing with only the memories he leaves as a legacy until they, too, die. What happens then? A happy thing occurs, and that is it, to you, the book ends, there is no downside. Real life is not like your books, Papyrus.”

  Papyrus, despite himself, found the strength to protest. “BUT IF A GOOD DEED WAS DONE, THEN--”

  “That night when you tried to keep Sans away from the shrapnel. You mocked him, his suicidal inclinations. Tell me, was that a good deed?”

  “I-I, I SAID--”

  “When you stormed out afterwards, when you broke your own arm, when you battered that tree in madness, tell me, was that a good deed?”

  “YOU--”

  “When I told you that you would kill the child, which I did, explicitly, and you set about ignoring me, tell me, was that a good deed?”

  “I TOLD YOU THAT I WOULD NEVER--”

  “When you threatened to kill me, tell me Papyrus, oh Great Papyrus, was that a _good deed?_ ”

  “YES! YES IT _FUCKING WAS!_ ”

  Gaster loured, finally pushing him back, the only crack in his now-serene demeanor.

  “You have the impulse control of a child. Nobody ever told you to stop.”

  Angry tears stained Papyrus’ voice, his timbre. “I AM NOT A CHILD.”

  Break his spirit, and he won’t try a stunt like that again. He has nothing left to live for.

  “Precisely. Children have other people reign in their destructive impulses. You think you help, and your will to do so is horrifying in its extremity. You have only the faintest consideration for the aftermath. I can’t feel guilt. Everything I do is to benefit myself in some way. It is not what I once was, but it is what I am now, and I know that. You cry for other people, you love deeply, you try to assist those in need. Tell me, Papyrus. What is your excuse?”

  Papyrus, somehow, was left more hollow, like the wind could blow him away. He would have wanted that.

  “I would have made him pancakes,” Gaster said, wistfully, “and pretended that he loved me.”

  Papyrus went to grab the tattered remnants of his scarf, to feel the comfort of the fabric and smell the conditioner that clung to its thread, though that had long since washed away. His hands split the scarf unintentionally, like a membrane, and in those few seconds he saw what he had done to Frisk, hands working to keep them together in disgusted rapidity, it was all he could see, the imagined scent of softener falling away to gore and grime and filth. In a panic he tore it to pieces, to shreds, hurtling the chunks to the ground. Red, tatters of it, like unanchored viscera, the light tearing through it to make it mist-like as it slipped. When he had snapped back to reality with a crunch of his fingers, bent unnaturally to ruin the fabric, he had saw what he had done. A lovely thing, a lovely, sweet thing, soaked in fraternal affection, ruined forever. His only memento. He could not conjure another. He did not deserve it. He was vaguely aware he had been yelling, calling, though only through the gentle sting in his throat.

  Gaster looked on, dully. Amused, Papyrus had noticed. He was right. They heard Undyne thunder down the hallway, and Gaster did his best to look distraught. It was dead-on.

  “You’ve lost,” he said, his face the picture of anguish, but his tone not matching. “Concede. Leave. Go.”

  Papyrus did, hate rooted firmly in his heart, it being the inertia that drove him now. Gaster might kill a Human, take their soul, force a reset. That would force Papyrus to start all over again. He and Sans would be trapped in another hellish loop. Every time, he would reach out, and every time, Sans would suffer. No more. He would end it.

  Gaster was going to die by his hands.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> papyrus ain't, uh, doin' so good


	10. Heat

  Gaster was in Undyne’s home, a mug of scalding hot tea clasped to his hands and a blue palm rubbing at his quaking back. He looked up, her soothing platitudes, her promises that everything would be alright falling away to nothing. He had the luxury of looking vacant, of playing dead, it being a totally normal response to grief. He had a blanket hooked around his shoulders, an attempt on Undyne’s to coddle him, he suspected, and it made him sweat, her home was like a furnace.

  “Dude, I’m so, so sorry man, I-- Shit, I don’t even know what to say, but you stay here for as long as you want, as long as you need to. You don’t need to worry about anything, about work, about going back, nothing.”

  Gaster sipped his tea, feeling suffocated. It was like being smothered with a pillow. He glanced to the window, and it was still light outside. He couldn’t feign tiredness, and he couldn’t ‘snap’ to ward Undyne off because she would see his anger as a challenge and become more encroaching in her support.

  “I’m so sorry, Papyrus. Sans is--”

  “WAS,” he said darkly, hands shaking around the cup in barely restrained anger, his plans having fell away, his cold interior breaching under the weight oh his indignation, flooding with hate. Papyrus. Fucking Papyrus. He thought about driving a knife into the back of his eyes just to spite him, and the only reason he held off was for his own sake. If Papyrus were in front of him, he would pull out his teeth individually, pluck his bones from his sockets and slowly, gently, twist his neck until it gave. Stupid, wonderful, hateful Papyrus. Gaster could admire him, almost.

  Undyne recoiled as if she had been shot, before resuming her original position, rubbing at his back in soothing motions, his anger entirely understandable.

  “Sans was... He was a good guy. What... Shit, I don’t know--”

  She scratched at the back of her head, exhausted, and Gaster briefly considered throwing the tea into her good eye.

  “What happened, Pap?”

  Gaster wiped pathetically at his nose, his sullenness genuine, his petulance staggering. All of his hard work, ruined. He was going to murder a Human, of course, and use their soul to go rocketing back to that day he was hunched over that child’s corpse, drenched in it’s gore, piloting his new body. He would need to start all over again. He would need to mould Sans again, now with the experience he needed. Papyrus would, probably, try the same stunt again, because that was what he did. He would be an empty, hoping, vacant thing, a shell of a creature that could do nothing but try and try again. He would not repeat himself. First, he would murder a Human in Papyrus’ name, as this was his fault, after all, and God was he going to know about it. Then he would go back. Then he would slowly, methodically torture Sans to death, and it would be fine, because he could still reset. And he would go back and smash his delicate, beautiful skull. And break his wide, white fingers. And lick at his sopping, wet tears. Everything he could think of. Everything. Everything.

  Everything.

  Everything.

  And at every stage, every part, he would remind Papyrus that this could have been avoided. Sans could be happy with him. He could be, he would be, because Gaster could gently push and slip his mind into his moulds, his desires. Until eventually Papyrus would just... Cease. And leave, like a starving pup that’s finally been kicked away from the curb it roams, until it simply gives up and dies. He wouldn’t be able to die in the conventional sense. He would wish he could. And Gaster had all the time in the world, he was an exceptionally patient creature. He would afford himself one last night of sleep, because he would not feel its gentle, soft pull on his bones for months. He sipped his tea.

  Say what you want about Undyne’s temperament, her brashness, she could make an excellent cup of tea. Unfortunately, this was not one of them. Gaster choked it back and creaked out a faint, grateful smile, a lie of an emotion.

  Gaster sniffed. “I-I WAS OUT SHOPPING FOR FOOD, B-BECAUSE IT WAS MY TURN TO MAKE DINNER, AND I...”

  He feigned a heave. This blanket was heavy. Undyne’s hand was heavier.

  “HE WAS DRUNK, GOD, HE WAS DRUNK AND I COULD SMELL IT FROM THE HALLWAY AND I KNEW, I KNEW HE HAD DONE SOMETHING...”

  Undyne shifted closer, her back hunched, her talons dull. “He... Did he do that a lot?”

  Gaster nodded weakly. “H-HE USED TO, BACK WHEN HE WAS... WHEN HE HAD PROBLEMS. BUT I THOUGHT HE WAS BETTER, I THOUGHT HE WAS SAFE, UNDYNE. I THOUGHT HE WAS SAFE.”

  Undyne stared off into space, recalling facts she had stumbled across in her attempts to soothe Alphys, to make herself more aware, to give it a terrifying realness.

  “People that seem the happiest, especially if it’s outta nowhere... Aren’t well, Papyrus.”

  “I WOULD HAVE MADE HIM HAPPY,” Gaster rasped, and it was true, God how it was true.

  Undyne’s voice dropped to a tone that was almost threatening in its level of reassurance, Gaster would have noted if he gave even the slightest shit beyond maintaining appearances. “Papyrus, don’t you ever, ever blame yourself for what he did. None of it was your fault, it wasn’t Sans’ fault, it wasn’t--”

  Her voice trailed off as she struggled on what to say.

  “... Not anyone’s fault, man. Stuff like this... Happens. And it’s awful. But people don’t think clearly sometimes, when they have a lot of their plate.”

She trailed off, sounding close to tears. Probably thinking of the lizard. What happened to her, anyway? The fact Undyne wasn’t a broken heap probably meant she was still alive.

  “W-WHAT HAPPENS NOW? WHAT DO I DO, UNDYNE? I-I’M ALL ALONE IN THE WORLD NOW, HE LOVED ME, HE--”

  Gaster cursed, and Undyne gasped softly, the gesture shocking her in a deep way. Papyrus did not sound like Papyrus.

  The grief must have been catastrophic. And God bless him, irritability was still an incredible reaction to it. He would have every right to go completely mad, to cry and screech and wail, and Undyne marveled at his constitution. Gaster needed to plan out the murder, and hope the soul he took was determined enough to suit his purposes. That would happen tomorrow. He was weary. His bones creaked uncomfortably in his clothing, shifting and clicking, like the sound of an over-wrought hinge. He looked around.

  Undyne’s apartment was hardly filthy, but it looked... Disheveled. Her phone buzzed to life on the coffee table in front of them, and she swooped her hand down to pick it up, glancing at the message. Her tenseness fell back into pity, as her digits tapped away, and once again she set in on the table, sighing. She took her eyepatch off, letting it flop uselessly on the floor, before scratching at the imprint it left.

  “Alphys, uh... Sends her condolences. She was gonna call but she’s... Not up to it, man. She says she’s sorry.”

  Gaster locked his eyes forward, too angry to even feign interest. Undyne took this as the shock settling in. If someone broke into her home, she could break their neck. If somebody threatened her friends, she could restrain them in eight different ways. If someone were to break down in front of her, she would hug them, and soothe them as best she could even if it didn’t come naturally. Try and cheer them up. Dig up their fighting spirit.

  When someone shut off entirely she floundered like the fish she was.

  “Like I said... None of this is your fault.”

  “I KNOW IT ISN’T MY FAULT,” Gaster responded, quietly. “I DO. BUT IT’S HARD TO TAKE IN, THAT I’M... INNOCENT IN ALL OF THIS, YOU KNOW? I MUST HAVE DONE SOMETHING WRONG, E-EVEN IF I CAN’T PINPOINT WHAT IT WAS EXACTLY.”

  “What he did,” she reassured, with a voice that would make even the most hardened veteran bow their head in her presence, “isn’t on you. Trust me, Papyrus. I’ll tell you that for as long as I need to, however long it takes for you to believe it. Always.”

  Gaster, to his own surprise, felt a little better.

  “... THANK YOU, UNDYNE. I NEEDED TO HEAR THAT.”

  She smiled, a worn, toothy grin, the gash over her left eye scrunching with her cheeks.

  He sipped quietly at his tea, letting her speak.

  “So, I... You’re gonna get the urn tomorrow, so you can scatter his ashes wherever you need to, anywhere, man. I stationed a couple of sentries at the foot of Ebott to stop looters and stuff, but you’ll be able to get by.”

  Gaster hadn’t thought about Sans’ dust, about the way it would be scooped up and given to him to sprinkle on the places he loved and the objects he cared for. Undyne must have sent Guards to gather him. He had hoped they were not dogs. They would be able to smell Sans’ sweatpants in the drawer, and Gaster would have no way to explain that detail, try as he might.

  “Y-you can go to Snowdin, or Waterfall or--”

  She laughed, and it was sudden and forceful, shock softened with memories of someone she did not care for, but certainly didn’t hate, either. He had kept Papyrus happy.

  “That shitty hotdog stand he loved so much, the illegal one.”

  Gaster quirked his brows. Undyne had barely known him, why on earth would she be getting upset over the slacker that ate up paychecks and didn’t give any work back in return, why would she squash her tears for him, why would she clench her fist until the skin of her palm broke, why would she try and play nice, as if they both did not complain about him every chance they got? He feigned heaviness, a slow, dripping miasma of grief that trickled out of him like rainwater off of a tin roof.

  The lizard. She was worried about the lizard. The one he would see in passing in the other labs, that could barely squeak out a sentence. That seemed a good thing to know, and so he did, he committed it to memory, another card in his hand to play with and tear and hide if things were not going in his favor, if he needed to. Another tidbit.

  “I STILL CAN’T BELIEVE HE’S DEAD.”

  “Did he... Seem kinda off, or anything?”

  “NO, NO HE...”

  Gaster faked tears, thick and congealing in his sockets.

  “HE JUST SEEMED... FINE. WE WEREN’T IN ANY DEBT, AND HE DIDN’T HAVE ANY... ENEMIES, I GUESS. H-HE DIDN’T--”

  Gaster put on that pained expression he had seen on Papyrus, of idealism lost, of hopes dashed, of blows dealt to someone that was too soft to take them.

  “I JUST DON’T UNDERSTAND,” he wept, coldly calculating his next move; leaving her home the next day, luring a Human to their death and consuming their soul.

  Undyne pulled him into a hug, to give him the opportunity to break down, to take on his burden for only a few brief seconds, to allow him the luxury of true expression. Best to take it, he supposed. It was what he was expected to do. Gaster threw his arms around Undyne in a grip that was strong enough to break the bones of anyone else, and he wanted to squeeze out of habit and pop her like a balloon, but she would win every physical fight, no questions asked. So he didn’t. He pretended he was distraught. That he was destroyed from the inside-out, vacant and hollow, being carried by the wind. She ate it up, clinging in turn, giving him heaving slaps on the back. Truly, a good friend.

  She smelled a little like fish, however. Gaster wondered if she could breathe underwater, or if she only suffered the downsides.

 

* * *

 

  Undyne’s couch was comfortable, luckily. She did not have a spare blanket, and the idea of them snuggling up together didn’t sit all that well with her, and so she had offered her own, because that was what people did. She was probably asleep in her room, shivering in the cold, though every heater was on. God, how can someone live in a house so hot? Gaster burrowed into his nook on the sofa, finding that special way to settle that only comes when you truly need sleep, when you would savor it; the plumpness of the surface under you threatening to overtake and smother you in comfort. Gaster drank in every languid second; the sound of the tacky fish clock on the wall, the branches tapping at the window like fingers beckoning him forward, the way his leg wrapped around the blanket to cool him, his sweating, seeping bones finding some relief. He was going to enjoy this. He needed to. He had a busy spell in front of him. With ease, with soft rapidity, he slept.

  Papyrus did _not_.

  Gaster had been asleep for one hour and was dreaming, gently, with no useless guilt to weigh him down, with no grand plans and machinations to distract him.

  Papyrus dragged his leg from the couch to brace against the cool carpet, with only moonlight punctured with clouds to guide his foggy vision, as it dipped in and out, as what was once his own body felt hideously foreign to him now. He almost missed the field, as he gracelessly slid his hand to his face, to prove it was him controlling his own movements, rather than another exceptionally cruel prank. With a sickening, sopping heat, like that of a fever, that aches at your joints, he peeled the covers back from himself. The task was herculean, but his purpose was set in stone, and so he picked at the very last dregs of his battered determination, of his ruined resolve, at his fractured ego. He still could not move his jaw to speak, and for that he was glad, because he doubted he could have done anything but slur and curse, even if it would have ruined his plan, he could not help himself. He braced his other foot against the ground, the warm air wrapping around his exposed bones, the state of his clothing ensuring that Gaster had to sleep in boxers for the night. With an almighty, sickening heave, exerting his strength, he stood.

  Stock still. But he stood. And he felt the relief wash over him like a riptide, his body still floppy, rigid in only the key areas needed to maintaining his balance as anything else was an impossible task. He made his way, slowly, unsurely, towards what he had assumed was Undyne’s kitchen, and God, he hoped it was.

  Left foot.

  Disgusting, unfathomable pain, like his leg was trapped in tar that stripped the marrow from his bones and drove into his pores to crack them open. Like individual threads were hooked around him, set on gently prising him apart, destroying what was once his body.

  He dragged his right foot across the ground before slipping it into position, in a way that allowed him to balance, and the effort made him heave. He saw the couch behind him. Three feet behind him. He grit his teeth. Three feet was still three feet, and soon it would be four, then five.

  Right foot.

  He let his leg slump forward to drag his carcass. It was agonizing. But he was finally doing it. It was finally happening. One day too late. He was too tired to laugh.

  He could see moonlight reflect off of the kitchen counter. Finally, his pride gave, and he dropped to his knees to crawl, bones catching on the carpet fiber as every excruciating movement propelled him forward. He couldn’t see anymore, his vision dipped in and out in waves as crushing nausea slinked in his hollow abdomen, a phantom sensation that taunted him. His fingers caught blindly on linoleum, and he knew he was in the kitchen. Once again, he stood up, slowly, crying out weakly in pain, the noise bubbling up and over, a pure expression that couldn’t be contained. He used the last of his strength to stagger forward, catching his outstretched hands on the counter and slumping onto them, the clack of his bones rattling out over and through and over. He heard Gaster, bleary, confused Gaster, and movement became hideously difficult.

  ‘What... Is--’

  Papyrus hooked his hand in the drawer, reaching in, and pulled out a knife with the other.

  ‘No! No no no, no, what is this? How have you done this? Desist!'

  Papyrus felt the control be wrenched from him and he did not know if he could ever, ever claw it back again, especially now that Gaster knew. This was it. This was his only chance to escape.

  ‘Please, please don’t do this! I’m sorry! I’m sorry! Forgive me, please, God, don’t do this!’

  “WHAT...” Papyrus wheezed, his voice bubbling and drowning like a pebble in the ocean, “SHOULD I FORGIVE?”

  And Gaster paused, because he was right, and Gaster didn’t know what he had done wrong. He was begging for his life. That was it.

  He could feel, and yet he couldn’t, and he could see flashes of a verdant, frozen field, and he couldn’t, and he could see the black kitchen counter in front of him, and he couldn’t.

  Gaster wept, or at least tried to, willing to make himself appear pathetic if it meant he would be spared.

  'I’m, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’ll reset and leave Sans alone, I wont do anything, I’ll-- I’ll--'

  The pitiable part of Papyrus’ mind heard him out.

  'Just please, don’t hurt _my_ body!'

  And all at once, he didn’t. It was a lie. A sickening, grotesque lie. Papyrus could feel his grip slipping away, and he couldn’t allow that to happen.

  “WHEN I TOLD YOU I WOULD HAVE PREFERRED DEATH, I MEANT IT. EVERY. LAST. WORD. ALL OF IT.”

  'Then please, please forgive me! That is what you do, you plumb the bottomless depths of your heart for forgiveness, and that is your greatest strength!'

  Papyrus, sickening himself, stopped to consider it again. Earnestly, and truthfully. He decided on an answer.

  “NO.”

  'W-what do you mean, no?'

  “NO. YOU’RE SORT OF A HUGE CUNT. THIS IS FOR THE BEST.”

  God help him, Papyrus was going to suffer over and over under Gaster, over and over, and he couldn’t cope with it. He was too weak. He was too soft. He was too gentle. It was best to end it, end it all, Sans deserved peace. Papyrus hoped that he had found it, wherever he was, watching down on him, a grim, smiling specter requesting that he let ‘by-bones be by-bones’. And Papyrus would scold him, but laugh later when he was alone. Because they were brothers.

  They were once brothers.

  “No, stop, please, I’m begging you!”

  With dark, gleeful triumph, Papyrus braced the knife against the back of his skull, succeeding in what he had set out to do from the start, when he had dragged himself centimeter by painstaking centimeter, clawing his fingers against the floor.

  “ _NO._ ”

  He raised his entire body upwards, knife primed, and drove himself down against the kitchen counter, and it prised apart the plates of his skull. It blossomed outwards from the inside like a pale, bitter lily, and he collapsed to the ground in pain, skewered, cackling madly, darkly; heaving, weeping hysteria. This was his fault. Frisk was dead because of him. Sans was dead because of him. And now Gaster would be dead as well. It was only fitting that he should remove himself from the world, cut out the cancer that killed all it touched. He brought too much hurt. It would be a better place without him, without another murderer. Undyne would find him, as was appropriate, witnessing an act of true justice.

  Oh, Sans.

  Poor, sweet Sans.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Every time I sit down to write Papyrus, the first thing I keep in mind is ‘tries to be lawful good, fails spectacularly each and every time’, although that is something I have added to his character for my own purposes. I hope it fits.


	11. Peace

  Papyrus woke up on a beach, a long, sandy beach, something he would never have dreamed he would see. White, pristine sand underneath him and infinite, staggering blue above, with nary a cloud in sight. He stood up, slowly, feeling like a pollutant in the perfect scene, the waves lapping at his feet. He looked... different. He looked like himself, which was something he had become unaccustomed to. His bones were pearly white.

  He had his scarf.

  Sans was in front of him. In that stained, well-worn hoodie, the one Papyrus had patched up again and again, the puffs of sand brushing against him in soothing, repetitive strokes, like those of a parent on their infant’s back.

  And Sans, dear Sans, his beloved brother, who had seen too much and suffered so, opened his arms, and Papyrus embraced him. It was a bitter, bitter hug. Papyrus did not know whether his mind, in his madness, in his loss, had conjured a spectre to alleviate his guilt, to lessen his endless torment for a brief moment, or if it truly was Sans, if they were both truly dead. He could not bring himself to question it as he hunched and clung. He sobbed.

  “I’M SO SORRY SANS, I, I’M SO, I DIDN’T WANT...”

  Sans shushed him, rubbing his back, and Papyrus clung tighter, tighter tighter tighter until he knew it would be painful, but he couldn’t stop himself.

  He had no idea what was happening. He was not sure if he had cast his mind to the void, to drift in madness, in warm, comforting lies. Forever, perhaps. He would take that.

  “I LOVE YOU SANS, I’M SO-- THIS IS SUCH A MESS-- I DON’T KNOW WHAT’S HAPPENING, I DON'T--”

  Sans strengthened his grip, letting out a long, shaky breath. He heard the sound of children playing on the wind, smelled the damp, rich musk of the sea. Papyrus’ scarf whipped in the wind, and it smelled like fabric softener, and it was almost foreign, yet comforting, always comforting, always there.

  “love you too, paps.”

  Papyrus had only wanted to do Good things and though he had failed he finally, finally found peace.

 

* * *

 

  Gaster was everywhere, and nowhere, and yet, there was an odd kind of peace in--

  Oh, no there fucking wasn’t! There was no point in lying to himself. He was miserable. He had been outwitted by an idiot, and he was not sure what that made him. Sleep, God, of course it was the sleep that would be his downfall, he wasn’t allowed to enjoy anything, apparently. And it was worse, now, because he had never truly known the terror of being nowhere, of being nothing, he had always had spats of feeling through Sans; the occasional burst of mirth, laughter with no clear reason, a lingering cloud of moroseness. He could not see himself, and though he tried to conjure images and figures they had no life to them, they had no realness, and that was almost worse than the blankness. It wasn’t black. It wasn’t white. It wasn’t even an especially spooky shade of taupe. It was simply nothing.

  Nothing. The vast space between here and there.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  
  And quite frankly he was getting sick of it.

  He counted himself lucky in that he could think, and plot, and on the other hand he cursed that very fact because there was no input, no stimulus to direct those thoughts towards and after months of having had that luxury, eating and drinking and screwing whoever he wanted it was a hell.

  It seemed like an odd thing to fixate on, but he went for for a plate of pancakes. With blueberries.

  With Sans.

  His heart sunk. He had been taken from him, like one of those overwrought tragedies. Gaster had been trying his best, and Sans had died to unfortunate circumstances. Gaster was, to his own surprise, to his own eternal shock, weeping.

  He didn’t like it.

  So he stopped.

  And all at once he felt something and it was weak, and it was leaving, but it was there, and so he grabbed onto it with both hands, groped at the sensation, tried to desperately figure out its source, tried to desperately--

  A woman.

  It was Undyne.

  She had stood on a piece of the shrapnel, and from the feeling in Gaster’s chest, she was surveying the scene in front of her, absolutely crippled with devastation, barely able to stand. It had pierced the skin, and he felt her shaking hands twist at it to pry it out.

  ‘ ** _Wait!_** '

  Undyne threw herself back, conjuring a spear and destroying the couch, finding they hit no living target. She conjured another, gripping it, entire body quaking with rage, unable to process the grief. Her hands, her clothes, were dusty.

  ‘I am--’

  Fuck, fuck, what was he? A guardian angel? No, too cliché. Some kind of... Spirit, sent to guide her, from a long line of warriors? She might buy that, she might. He needed to answer.

  ‘I am here to help you.’

  Memories, little ones, insignificant ones, trickled into him from his periphery, all of it useful, all of it tools!   
  
  ‘Oh, Undyne, Hero of Our People--”

  She stood to attention, feeling her nostrils flare, her palms bleeding around the spear, her grip splitting the skin.

  ‘Please let me help you. Please, let me help everyone. Your friend, Papyrus, is...’

  Gaster faked a sob, faked a muffled voice as if he were placing his palm to his mouth.

  Finally she spoke, with a commanding tone that almost made Gaster give up then and there, but he reminded himself not to be cowed, and kept his voice gentle, wise, paternal, like the benevolent spirit he was meant to be.

  “What the... Fuck _are_ you? Was this _your fault?_ ”

  Gaster felt his voice die off, because of course it wasn’t, it was Papyrus’, but he couldn’t come right out with it.

  ‘I wish it was. God, I wish it was. Because then you would have someone to blame.’

  Undyne went quiet, and finally she cracked, breaking out in rasping cries, trying desperately to keep the tears in. She was so far gone she had just sort of... Accepted it. There were clumps of dust strewn around the kitchen, and small black specks she hadn’t noticed in her terror. God, Papyrus.

  ‘Sans... Sans was a very ill man, and Papyrus could not cope with that burden. No matter how I tried to dissuade him, he... He had his own issues, Undyne.’

  “No... No, no, no, Papyrus was fine, I was gonna make him pasta today to keep his spirits up, I had some sauce out to defreeze, and... I-I...”

  ‘He hated himself, Undyne. He hated himself. He would cover it up with grand gestures and small, ever-growing lies, but did you ever take note of how specific they became? How oddly appropriate they were? Every time you mentioned a pretty woman you saw at the dump, your ex-girlfriends, the friends you made growing up he would grow quiet, then louder than ever before. He was miserable, Undyne. The fact he did not do this earlier was nothing short of a miracle. And Sans’ death... Was too much.’

  She shook her head vehemently, still unsure of the phantom voice that she was speaking with, balancing her leg on the ball of her foot. She didn’t know what this thing was, what was happening, but she wanted no part in it, wanted no--

  ‘I can help with Alphys.’

  Undyne stopped.

  ‘You know full well that she is struggling. And you know full well that you have no idea how to handle it, what to say. I am good with people. I do know what to say. I know the exact combination of words, in the right tone, and I can recite them to you.’

  “I’m not gonna--”

  Those cartoons! Those stupid cartoons, appeal to her sense of honour and she will fall for it, hook line and sinker!

  ‘Can you afford to lose her, as well? Knowing that this opportunity is in front of you? Please, there is so much suffering in the world, and I need the help of someone brave enough to stand up against it. I want to help in even the smallest way.’

  Undyne paused, the only sound being the gentle, weary flaps of her fins, her choked sobs and her heavy, wet breaths.

  Holy shit, she was a moron! An honest-to-God moron!

  “Wait, wait... If... You give counsel to people, right? You weren’t able to talk Papyrus out of--”

  Her voice cracked, and she crushed her tears under her willpower, her dogged determination.

  “Why should I trust you with Alphys?”

  ‘Because Papyrus did not take me seriously. I was not close to him. He wanted me as a friend, and I tried my best, and though it seemed he accepted me with open arms it takes time. He has a way of twisting the things he hears to fit what he wants.’

  Undyne went to spit and bare her teeth, blaring, but felt it lie dead on her tongue. He was not wrong. Papyrus, gentle and sweet as he was, had a few bad habits.

  God, had. Past tense.

  She stumbled backwards, then dropped to the couch, certain she was going mad under it all, Sans was dead, Papyrus, sweet, innocent Papyrus was dead, the job was too much, Alphys already felt like she was a burden, and Undyne was strong, stronger than anyone alive, but even she--

  ‘Shh,’ Gaster soothed, amazed he was getting away with this, ‘shhh. Please, Undyne, take as long as you need. You do not need to take this offer, if you are confident that you can save Alphys. I have faith in you. But if you don’t need my help, then I think there is someone out there who perhaps needs me more--’

  “Wait!” Undyne barked, and it was at that moment that Gaster truly knew the tables had turned, that he had twisted in the gaps in her joints, had pulled her nails out, had her hooked.

  She groaned, never giving up, but certainly coming close.

  “What... The hell is this?”

  God, he had to go full cliché for this one.

  ‘I appear to people when they need guidance. And I provide advice.’

  “Advice?”

  Gaster pretended he was a long-suffering man, a martyr, and put on his best pained voice, making sure to keep it raspy and distinct from Papyrus’.

  ‘... But they only came to me when they were at their worst. Sans... Sans was very ill, and no matter what I did he couldn’t be swayed. Papyrus... Could not live without him, the poor soul.’

  Undyne’s face scrunched, her eye puffy with tears, with absolute disbelief as she absorbed the scene around her. Papyrus, God almighty, Papyrus, what had he done?

  Gaster was floundering, he had been handed the opportunity of a lifetime, an unbelievable boon brought on by grief-filled stumbling. He was about to panic. He saw a flash of her, of her memories.

  Her ego, that was it, that was it, appeal to her ego!

  ‘But you are stronger than them. You can take harsh truths. You are a hero, after all. You can truly help.’

  Undyne was pulling at her ponytail, body crackling with magic, ready to strike again at even the slightest perception of a threat, even if there was nobody truly there, even if she had just gone mad with grief.

  “Why?”

  ‘Because it is what I do. Monster-kind has myths, and legends, and tales of people from long before the war, before they were wiped from memory. I am one of them. I wandered from village to village, place to place, in a time you could not even fathom, and seen things you could not possibly believe. And then I ascended. And I want to help this planet, and the people on it. Tell me, have you ever heard of the Man Who Speaks in Hands?’

  She balked. She had. Who hadn’t? The stories said he was a nomad that would leave good fortune to those that left him offerings, but those were stories, dumb tales for children to fawn over. Written hundreds of years ago.

  “Are... Are you a God?”

  ‘I may as well be. I am everywhere. I am magic.’

  Undyne clenched her fists, her teeth.

  ‘... And I am benevolent. I grant one wish. Each time. Every time. You, Undyne, Undyne the undying, have been chosen. Congratulations. This is an honor.’

  Undyne sat still, dead, swaying, her core boiling with undirected anger.

  ‘Do you know how Papyrus broke the barrier? Do you know what he did? He wished for it, and I gave him the power to. Because I love him. Because I love Monsters. Because I love Humans. And because I love you. So many people suffer, Undyne. You know that. You are the Captain of the Guard, soon to be Major of the Guard, if my predictions are right, and they generally are, and I know for a fact that Dr. Alphys is not well. And she will attempt something awful. And she may succeed. You cannot steer her from this path. You cannot peer into the minds of others as I can.’

  Well, he was only half-lying on that last one.

  “I’ll... I’ll--”

  She sniffed, wiping at her face so hard she almost bruised, eyes locked and staring into the distance. This was absurd. She was too drained to question it.

  “I’ll think about it.”

  Gaster could have whooped. ‘I’ll think about it’ was one step up from murder, as she had intended to do at the beginning of the conversation, and with pressure, with the knowledge he was gaining, he could drive it up to a 'maybe'. And then a 'yes'. And then make it seem like the best idea ever put forward, the only way conceivable to stop Alphys from killing herself, from feeling guilt over something he didn’t care about. She didn’t have to come around immediately, she wouldn’t, he knew that. She certainly couldn’t be strong-armed. No, just the little sliver left in her foot would do, and he would coo and prod and coax when Alphys was around, when she was at her worst, when she wouldn’t answer her texts and Undyne was left running to her house. Months. Years. He could wait. He was good at that. All the pieces of shrapnel, an offering, for a wish he would never grant. She might want to save Alphys. She might wish to bring Sans and Papyrus back. He didn't care.

  “What... Who are you?”

  ‘My name is Gaster, and I am here,’ he rasped, almost unable to contain his glee, ‘to offer you a deal.’

 

* * *

 

  Becoming Papyrus again was not difficult.

  Papyrus woke up in the field, and his peace was torn from him. Gaster would never sleep again.

 

The End

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Gaster’s inability to control his boner leads to the deaths of many people after he fucks Sans across time and space with the cosmic dick of the universe, and then undyne makes a bad decision. So, uh... that was that! Boy did it get grim! It was fun to write, in a super fucked up horror-loving kind of way. Hope you liked it! Any questions? Fire away!
> 
> the sequel is up! ^^

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Hereafter](https://archiveofourown.org/works/8121208) by [roseverdict](https://archiveofourown.org/users/roseverdict/pseuds/roseverdict)




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